No starting times are ever necessary at Shek O golf. Only at weekends, when big business pauses, do the occupiers of the lovely villas escape from the city and come to re-charge their batteries in the lovely valley. Then things become crowded, in a bearable way. But normally everything at Shek O is leisurely. Since 1925 this is where the privileged few have relaxed. The first chairman of the company was named Bird and he chose the club motto which encircles the ibis bird and means “In the middle it is best you go’.
The Golf Widow and I left Shek O with much regret. The valley is very near to what every golf addict has in the back of his mind as a retreat for the day the football pools come up.
Hong Kong was an adventure, and meeting old and new friends was always enjoyable. Most importantly, the golf took us away from the bustling cities of Victoria and Kowloon, which frankly are not for us. Colourful Chinese people, fascinating junk life, thousands of small venturous restaurants . . . We could take all that. But, towering above everything, there are menacing skyscrapers of flats, office blocks, hotels (two of which are 300 feet tall), all terrifyingly clinical. Buzzing along crowded streets like demented bees, four million lost souls chase dollars. Frightful.
‘Nothing in Hong Kong is quite as it appears to be. There’s always something else, beneath the surface,’ said Henry Heath. Of course he is right.
The British Colony started back in 1841. In those days the island had a bad reputation for ill-health, running sores, deafness and dysentery. All that has gone. Brainy British administration and Chinese hard work have produced a kind of twentieth century civilisation.
‘It is a twenty-four hours slog,’ said a Chinese businessman. ‘I have to work much harder in Hong Kong than in China. But I know my son will get a good start,’
The Golf Widow’s great-grandfather lived here, and when he eventually returned to Plymouth he brought back his pigtailed Chinese servant. The poor chap couldn’t stand English crowds and climate, and pined until he was allowed to return to Hong Kong. To-day the reverse would happen. Unless, of course, he was a golfer living at Shek O.
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