The only down side was with Hong Kong adoptions. Hong Kong Social Work (SW) Dept decreed Service personnel couldn’t adopt local children through their agency, citing ‘increasing affluence’ and ‘decline in abandonment of female-babies’ as their reasons. I had a stream of adoption-hungry Army families looking for bairns and fell out with Mrs Kwok, SW Director, because I circumvented the policy. I found unwanted children through long-standing contacts in the Colony, set up introductions of mothers and adoptive parents, and progressed a dozen cases through Court. As Director of SW, Mrs K had to attend each Final Hearing so wasn’t a happy lady but it gave some children the chance of a sure and comfortable, rather than an uncertain and deprived, future to look forward to, and made a few Service people happy.

Major Fugard had been trying to find time for me to visit Singapore to ‘learn the ropes.’ On 15 January 1965 the RAF flew me from RAF Kai Tak to RAF Changi, and I was pleased to finally meet Sergeant Frank Fallon RASC, who ran the Singapore office with three civilian clerks. They had an enormous workload, dealing with troops in Borneo where ‘Confrontation’ was going on, Malaya, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand as well as Hong Kong. My arrival coincided with Ramadan, a 4-day holiday which, since I’d been awaiting the visit for 11 months, indicated a planning problem but at least I got to see many men seeking improvement (?) by parading with dozens of metal barbs sticking into their bodies.

In a private chat with Frank, I told him about my battle with Hong Kong’s SW Dept and how I’d got around it. A good, honest if vociferous Socialist, he was impressed with what I was doing and agreed with why, but warned, “Don’t let Major Fugard find out. He would explode if he found out that, as a part of HIS organisation, you were cocking a snook at a Government department!”

GHQ was located at Tanglin amid what seemed to be a rain forest, with clearings for buildings, chopper pads, sports pitches etc. It was an enormous complex employing hundreds of tri-service military and civilians of several nationalities. The Sergeants’ Mess had 300 members - HQLF Hong Kong’s had 60 - and it was good to meet both Aussie and Kiwi senior rates and ranks. Every night there was a function, even if just a whist drive, and the accompanying Buffet Suppers were luxuriously huge spreads. My room, however, was one of 30 open-topped boxes, with thin walls ending 7 feet up and, 20 feet above, was the ceiling, made of some sort of thatch out of which crawling insects constantly dropped.

I met an old Boys Coy RASC (1954-1956) friend, Lou Cunningham. Lou organised a trip to Bougis Street, in downtown Singapore, with six sergeants and four late-teenage daughters of Service personnel. It was a happy social evening until we met some reps of the Royal Australian Navy, whose 7-ship fleet had recently suffered its flagship, the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne, being sliced in two by a RAN frigate. Lou called out, “Hey, what’s it like in the only Navy in the world with six and a half ships...?” Bougis Street was crawling with uniformed sailors of several nationalities and those at the table next to the Aussies got the blame. The area rapidly degenerated into a screaming, punching, kicking, table and glass smashing shambles and, as I melted away like a thief in the night with one of the girls, I vowed to avoid Lou in future.

On a more sedate level, I enjoyed an evening in the famous Raffles Hotel, spent time in the NAAFI Club (over the road from the Raffles), admired the Aquarium and crossed the Merdeka (‘Freedom’) Bridge to Katong Koolong district. I visited the Aw Boon Haw Gardens, with charming walkways, beautiful ornamental buildings, elegant fountains, various gardens, trees, lagoons, streams, bridges, and many statues of the Buddha and fantastical animals from Chinese mythology. The Gardens were designed and built by the maker of Tiger Balm ointment and there is a duplicate at Happy Valley, Hong Kong (the Gardens, not the Balm). They were probably amongst the world’s first Theme Parks.

On Sunday 24 January 1965 Winston Churchill died and I surprised my fellow Mess members by wearing a black tie in the Mess that evening, something I’d brought with me by chance. On 25 January, I thanked my hosts and colleagues in Army Legal Aid (Civil) and flew British Eagle Airways from Paya Lebar Airport to Kai Tak, where I was warmly welcomed into the arms of my girlfriend, Diane Wong.