Word: gawler
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...Gawler, an avuncular, semi-retired flight engineer, is navigating my journey into deep childhood, starting with the shrubbery behind Hong Kong's Kowloon Bowling Green Club (KBGC). Gawler is one of its longest-standing members. "The fa wong [gardener] had a house here and a well," he says. "All the kids used to play here, remember...
...house and well are gone now, replaced by an electricity substation, and the old guard is vanishing fast. "There's something like 450 members now," reckons Gawler, "of which only about 40 of us are expats. But it was all expats back then. Now it's empty half the time, and it's quite sad really...
...Afterward, in the cool, crepuscular and deserted bar we drink pints beneath photographs of the long departed and the disparu?champions of '66, good old boys of '73. "I think it's difficult for the club," says Gawler. "We're one of the cheapest clubs to join, but the joining fee is HK$30,000, and that's still too expensive really. I don't know who they're going to get. I mean, would you join this for $30,000?" As he says this he gestures at a mothballed snooker room...
...KBGC. Instead of hectoring members to switch off their mobiles, it simply asks for phones to be put on silent mode. No Chinese will be parted from his cellular, so that one small sign tells a long story of cultural accommodation. "I mean no disrespect to the locals," says Gawler, "but they're not really as sociable as the expats. They don't get drunk and that. A lot of them come in here, pour themselves a glass of water, read the paper and go away again...
...Thursday, April 12, the Harvard University authorities offered the Cruft High-Tension Laboratory for the use of the Navy Department in training the radio branch of the Coast Defence, class four, Naval Reserve Force. On the following day, Lieutenant Gawler, U. S. N. R. F., Gunner Dame, U. S. N., and I made an inspection of the premises with Professor G. W. Pierce '99 and found great opportunities here for this work. On the next Monday the class was started...
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