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The family moved to Hongkong. Mother set about educating her young family. She used the Calvert School system: a primary school UNISA which sent to the tutor all materials down to the last rubber on the pencil tip. It had memorable textbooks, notably a Child's History of the World, Geography and History of Art. Neighbours' children from mercantile, police or military families joined to dilute and prod the young Cooks. Those nearly ten years in Hongkong seemed idyllic to us while we were home. We were hardly aware that each of father's voyages lay through waters increasingly menaced by Japan. Faced with whether mother should journey to safety elsewhere or stay, they chose to stay. During those years the three eldest children were sent to the China Inland Mission School at Chefoo in North China. The trip to school took seven or eight days by ship. Each morning there was a packet to be drawn from a mystery haversack mother packed to keep homesickness at bay. The school a thousand miles away seemed to offer the crucial qualities: an evangelical foundation, independence. We were the third generation. During this time we were introduced to Africa. Mother won a prize of two tickets to a searchlight tattoo offered in a limerick contest. The climax of the evening was a representation of the seige of Rorke's Drift, complete with flames, shooting and nuggetted marines acting as Zulu impis. My parents' furlough in 1938 was partly on the 'Empress of Britain's' round the world cruise: for them, activities such as Captain Cook hoisting flags to commemorate Sydney's 150th anniversary on headlands father had last seen from the hold of the German raider 'Wolf' in world war I; for us at school, wonderful envelopes, wonderful stamps, wonderful letters. Pearl Harbour split the family into three. We were all captured, but mother had the worst time of all. After Hongkong fell on Christmas Day 1941 she went into Stanley concentration camp. The three smallest children were with her: Clyde, her right hand man was 6 ½, Van Dyke was 4 months. In her bible next the verse 'Our life for yours' was pencilled 'Stanley 1942'. The reference is to the pact made by Rahab the harlot of Jericho with the spies from Israel (Judges
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