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Camp brings out all types. There was also the hoarder of morsels who went into comers to eat unobserved and alone. There were those who could find no community work to do. There were others who never had a free moment. There were women who cut, sewed and mended with little materials. There were men who sat and read, or just sat all day, or wandered about like lost lambs. There were others who turned their hands to anything-cooking rice, gathering fire wood, digging ditches and trenches, cobbling shoes, making cooking and eating utensils. There was an exhibition of things made in the camp, hats, and shoes from gunny sacks and plaited reeds, tables, chairs, mosquito net frames, dresses, scales. As the summer came on and cockroaches and centipedes increased, I thought I would try and make a double decker bed for the children by tying rods or poles together and making a lattice-work frame. It would take twelve bamboo rods-if I could find them. Every available bit of wood surrounding us had been taken, so I went to see an ingenious friend, Mr. Steiner, in the American quarters. He promised to see if he could find something. The next day he came to ask me how a bed spring would do. A Mr. Hunt had been keeping this bed for a friend who had not yet been interned and would let our family use it in the meantime. It was placed on concrete blocks and by adding, in a vertical position, a bed end which George had found, it did for the whole family, and we were able to get under one net. Ma Si Fu had gotten the netting when he heard that we were going to Stanley and Su Mei had made it. I got a smaller net from a distribution centre for the baby. I had since met the owner of the pram and traded it off for a basket which I slung from a tree during the day and put on the verandah at night. He was a rock-a-bye baby in the day, even to climbing and falling out several times. I cannot say how grateful I was to be sleeping on a spring bed and was I the envy of my neighbours! I had become accustomed to the hard floor, but it was so much easier for me
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