Forty-six years ago, the Colony still had factories operating and the textile industry was thriving, with Hongkong's mills getting a larger share of the Indonesian cotton-spinning work this year, a report on September 21 said. 'Hongkong's share last year earned 13 spinning mills about $22.2 million. Indonesia, who obtained 120,000 bales of American surplus raw cotton this year, invited tenders from Hongkong, Japan and Pakistan for spinning it into yarn,' it said.
Two-thirds of the 450 tickets for the Centenary Ball to be held by the Hongkong Red Cross at the Mandarin Hotel in October had been sold, a September 21 report said. The ball would be the first such grand function to be held at the new hotel and a variety of valuable prizes would be drawn, including an Australian Austin Freeway Six, a Grundig three-piece radiogram and tape recorder, a 23-inch-screen TV set, donated by Run Run Shaw, and return tickets to Bangkok, Manila, Singapore or Kuala Lumpur, it said. Footnote: The Freeway was a car built by BMC Australia from 1962-66 to counter the new six-cylinder cars from Holden and Ford. But it did not sell as well as hoped and had reliability problems.
In the Fashion Notes column on September 23, designers decided to fly high with the 'winged look' from head to toe. The favoured hat shape was a 'triangle of fur, leather or tweedy fabric, folded round the head and finished at the back of the neck with two little rabbits' ears of fabric jutting out. The hairdo the young Italian girls love at the moment is divided from the crown to the nape of the neck, the straight ends carried to either ear and whirled around with fancy ribbons to look like miniature propellers,' it said. Half-coat, half-cape styles with 'batwing sleeves set in from the shoulder to jut below the hips would be seen a lot and flying panels were back on skirts'.
Jean Gordon's review of the film Universe by Night, which opened at the Roxy Sands, said another of the 'extraordinarily popular collections of nightclub turns chosen from different parts of the world' set itself apart from the many others we have seen. 'It will have special local interest because considerable time has been spent by the [Italian] producers in Hongkong, where the cameras have been busy in well-known nightclubs and streets. There is the usual preponderance of international striptease acts, from the famous Crazy Horse and the Pigalle in Paris ... One gorgeous creature is glamorised by a screen of black net ... and a third is assisted by an engaging little pony to remove her essential garments,' the review said. 'There are some shapely chorus girls, superb acrobats from the Paris Lido ... For those who like the exotic, there is a sadistic whip dance and a good deal of snaky dancing by various groups of handsome dusky young men.'
Migration to Britain had become so popular that the long-haul state airline British Overseas Airways Corp, or BOAC, applied to the authorities for permission to introduce a special economy-class fare to Chinese who wanted to return to Hongkong, a report on September 23 said. Most immigrants were not accompanied by their wives or children and many went for five years or more without seeing them. Despite the introduction of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, the number of people who migrated still totalled more than 1,100 in the first year of the act. In the fifties it was less than 1,000 a year, in 1961 it rose to 2,000 and in the first six months of 1962, the figures peaked at 2,000. 'For the immigrant, Britain offers greater prosperity but in many cases little else. Language forms a considerable barrier to outside entertainment, and the mixture of Chinese clubs, cafes and shops nesting almost within the shadow of Liverpool Cathedral forms one of the few recognised meeting places ... Even where their own clubs do exist, gambling is often the most popular activity.'
A woman who was summonsed for wasting water because she hosed her dog was discharged when a magistrate held that a dog needed a bath as much as a human being, a court report on September 24 said.