ReviewBook review: Jack Jones: A True Friend to China - unsung heroism
A few years ago, British writer Andrew Hicks, a former lawyer and lecturer in Hong Kong, came across author Jack Reynolds when he was mentioned in reviews of his own novel, Thai Girl. He later discovered that Reynolds was actually a Briton named Jack Jones, who had worked in the Quakers' Friends Ambulance Unit "China Convoy" after the second world war.
edited by Andrew Hicks
Earnshaw Books
A few years ago, British writer Andrew Hicks, a former lawyer and lecturer in Hong Kong, came across author Jack Reynolds when he was mentioned in reviews of his own novel, Thai Girl. He later discovered that Reynolds was actually a Briton named Jack Jones, who had worked in the Quakers' Friends Ambulance Unit "China Convoy" after the second world war.
Hicks went on to find detailed accounts of those years, newsletters and poetry written by Jones, the son of a vicar who ran the transport unit while based in Kunming, Chongqing and other areas. The newsletters were sent out to a handful of Friends workers sprinkled throughout the mainland and now preserved in the archives of both the Friends House in London and in an archive in Philadelphia. As such they're a great advertisement for why Hong Kong needs an archive law.
Jones describes the everyday clinics that the 400, largely British men, later American, provided with their Chinese colleagues for the impoverished population. The work was exhausting, including bone-jarring journeys across thousands of kilometres in trucks on non-existent roads to provide supplies to needy communities.
The trucks were constantly overloaded and would sometimes roll into ravines, all against the backdrop of the advance of the communists and the retreat of the Kuomintang forces.
It's this mixture of the daily challenges of the clinics and people's conditions, including scabies, mastitis, breach births, malaria, plus the long truck trips, mixed in with a stack of quality black and white photos that make this an interesting read.