Hindmarsh Alice (1 results)

A female traveller's lively and fast-paced record of carefree adventure on both land and sea. Visiting Shanghai, the "Paris of the East", for the first time and returning to the city a couple of months later, Alice Hindmarsh enjoys a hectic life of shopping, socializing, and dinners, during which laughter and fun are ever present, whether while sipping a tipple in a German-run beer garden or watching a motorcycling daredevil. Born in 1886 in Britain, Hindmarsh travelled in the company of her husband, Jack, who was employed as a seaman on merchant vessels during the 1920s and 1930s. This diary spans Jack's eight-month posting to the Oakworth, a 400-foot cargo vessel, for two return voyages from North America to Shanghai. Hindmarsh is entirely comfortable with life at sea. Her entries record longitude and latitude and distances travelled, and she freely uses naval terminology. The first volume opens with a short voyage from Manchester to Canada to rendezvous with Jack, during which she sits at the captain's table - "I sit at the Captain's right hand as I'm a sailor's wife and a member of the sacred profession" (14 May) - records with interest the acquisition of 18,000 stems of bananas in Panama, and stays fiercely independent ("lunch time we had such a discussion on marriage - I said I'd never say 'obey' to any man and the captain said 'you wouldn't be my wife then' and I said 'thank God I'm not!'" - 23 May). She chats and reads Pearl Buck, takes any opportunity to explore stopping points and observe local boats and junks, and thrives in the relaxed atmosphere. "It's lovely to be on the ship. I must be a real sailor. its like home to me" (30 September). Hindmarsh spends time in Shanghai 13-28 July and 19-30 September, periods spanning 56 pages. While in China, the Hindmarshes are in the safe hands of Gordon Yates, one of the directors of the Furness Far East Shipping Company. To refresh themselves in the hot summer, they frequent the Palace Hotel, Colombia Club, and Astor House ("gorgeous things to eat, good service, lovely music and pleasantly cool with all the fans in action" - 15 July), and she shops exuberantly. By the end of each stay, her luggage is full of curios, silk, clothes, candles, and knickknacks. Via Yates, they meet a wide range of expatriates, many of whom are more than up for a coffee and a good gossip. Dinners are an event, especially when she receives her first taste of a full-on Chinese banquet: "What a meal! There was a large dish in the centre with mandarin fish (baked) and onions and mushrooms. The smaller bowls (about 12) containing roast chicken and chestnut, celery and ox liver, beef roast with young bamboo shoots, chicken liver and mushrooms, noodles and fungus, roast pork and peas, Shantung cabbage, bean sprouts, shrimps, etc. etc. At each place was set 2 chopsticks, a china ladle spoon, and a small bowl of soya sauce (very hot). Green tea was served with this in small bowls (china) - everybody helped themselves and each other - dipping their chopsticks into anything they fancied, making a lovely mess of the cloth and themselves" (20 September). Although 1931 witnessed a substantial decline in Sino-Japanese relations and the first rumblings of future large-scale conflict, such matters are a world away from life as experienced in the moment. Only rarely does Hindmarsh even make note of them; for example, when all the cinemas close to mark the Mukden Incident. "All entertainments were closed down because of China's Humiliation Day - caused by the Japs, who beat them in a scrap in Manchuria and killed a lot of Chinese a few days previously" (23 September). The inconvenience was only temporary, and a few days later she is able to see Maurice Chevalier in The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) and watch a motorcyclist perform the "wall of death act" (26 September). 3 vols (octavo and 2 quartos), contemporary coloured cloth or roan, edges marbled, gilt, or blue. Comprising 386 pages filled in neat manuscript, 2 vols completely filled, the third with blanks. Hinges stabilized, contents clean: a well-preserved set of journals.…