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Virginia Maher

From the pages of the South China Morning Post this week in 1964

The Commonwealth Development Corporation announced in London that it had agreed, in principle, to take part in a new mortgage company to be formed in association with the Hong Kong government.

The announcement brought closer a home ownership scheme for the colony's white-collar, middle-income group.

The new company was expected to provide mortgage loans on flats in an approved price range in middle-income housing schemes.

The corporation was slated to provide up to HK$16 million, with the Hong Kong government matching the figure.

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation issued HK$15 million in HK$1, 50-cent and 10-cent coins in response to the annual Lunar New Year demand.

There were no figures for the issue of HK$5 notes, which were favoured for lai see packets.

A bank spokesman said the amount was a substantial increase over the previous year, when only HK$4 million in notes and coins combined was issued for the festivities.

Every household received a 10-hour water supply on Lunar New Year's Eve. The water was available for four hours in the morning and six hours from 5pm.

Water was restricted at the time to four hours once every four days, and the 10-hour supply was a one-off for the festivities.

The director of Public Works favoured the installation of separate water meters in multi-storey buildings.

'The advantages to be gained are such that our aim should be to make the installation of individual meters a standard practice in the future,' he said.

There were 91,897 water meters at the time.

The gaslight era drew to a close in the colony with the replacement of 70 gaslights on Hong Kong Island.

Gaslights were first installed in Hong Kong in 1864, when there were 500 illuminations.

The number increased to 3,200 in 1940, but many were dismantled during the Japanese occupation.

British and American diplomats worked feverishly to prevent the hostile Greek and Turkish communities on Cyprus from starting a full-scale war in the eastern Mediterranean.

Diplomatic sources said a war could be touched off by one more major clash and intervention by either government.

Diplomats were convinced there would be one sure loser - the whole western alliance built up since the second world war as a shield against communist expansion. Unmarried fathers in the Soviet Union would have their names entered on their children's birth certificates under legislation being prepared.

The new provision would lift the stigma of illegitimacy from children born out of wedlock by ruling that the father must reveal his name, so there would be no blank column in the birth certificate.

An American Nazi Party organiser was detained on a charge of 'trafficking in hatred'.

The 25-year-old was convicted under the little-known anti-hatred law, which carried a three-year sentence and US$10,000 fine.

The film star Marlon Brando said all his future film contracts would include a clause barring his films from being shown in segregated cinemas throughout the world.

A Sydney magistrate ruled that 'bloody' was an indecent word when used in a public place.

He made the ruling when he fined a man for using indecent language to a police constable.

The magistrate said: 'The Concise English Dictionary ... gives the meaning of the word as indecent and unbecoming.'

The way people liked their potatoes was a sure clue to their social rating, concluded a nationwide survey for the British Potato Marketing Board.

It said people who liked potatoes for breakfast were most likely to live south of Birmingham.

Those who ate them mashed were probably northerners, and people who liked roast potatoes usually lived in London or the south.

It went on: 'Chips are predominantly working class and crisps are generally middle-class.'



slice of life