Elsie tu autobiography of benjamin moore

She recalled much later that when her father was encouraging her to make the most of her opportunities at school, it was not for the advantages that would give her in terms of her own career but rather he emphasised the many more ways to serve the poor that would be open to her. The family moved many times when Elsie was young and she attended several different schools including North View School in Heaton, Walkergate and Welbeck Road and, less happily, West Jesmond.

Here she felt she was looked down on by both teachers and other pupils because she lived in the poor neighbourhood of Shieldfield at the time. In future years, she remembered how she had felt and said this influenced her behaviour towards others. On the whole though, Elsie loved learning and was offered a place at Benwell Secondary School, where she spent three years, before her family became the first tenants of 8 Holystone Crescent on the newly built High Heaton council estate and she transferred to the recently opened Heaton Secondary Schools.

Elsie was able to shine there and was in the first cohort to matriculate, obtaining the best results in the school, along with a special history prize. Elsie also loved sport. In Januaryhowever, a shocking event took place in the family home, which was witnessed by 16 year old Elsie. It was Elsie who was next on the scene and summoned help.

Ten days later both Ethel and her father were still in hospital with severe head injuries. She was the first women to take advantage of the Sex Disqualification Removal Act and join an institution of the legal profession and the second woman to be called to the bar. The Humes continued to live at 8 Holystone Crescent for at least three years after this traumatic event but then moved to various other addresses in Heaton, including, from64 Balmoral Terrace;20 Cheltenham Terrace and, from26 Balmoral Terrace.

Elsie was always most public-spirited and energetic. She studied English and history and trained to be a teacher not, she later said, because she had a burning ambition to work in education but because she believed it was the only profession open to a girl from a poor background like hers, without the means to pay for further study.

She had to look beyond Newcastle for a job teaching English and history and found one in an elementary school in Halifax, taking her away from home for the first time. She returned to Newcastle when war broke out. Back home in Heaton, Elsie found a job teaching in Prudhoe and, when not working, she volunteered in civil defence. Her autobiography contains an emotional account of April when 46 people were killed when high explosive devices and a parachute bomb exploded in the area of Heaton around Guildford Place and Cheltenham Terrace.

The house 20 Cheltenham Terrace where the Humes had lived only a couple of years before was badly damaged by the first bomb and two people who lived there were seriously injured. Less than two weeks before, it had been announced in the newspapers that Elsie had successfully completed a certificate in home nursing and on this night, her newly acquired skills were used to the full.

Elsie spoke of meeting two brothers, fellow air raid wardens. They warned her and the injured man to return to an underground shelter as they believed more bombs would fall. The lenses had been blown out of the glasses of one of the brothers and they told her that their home had been hit. She later discovered that both of them were killed by a second bomb.

They were almost certainly the Shaw brothers, Thomas and William, whose story has already been written about on this website by Ian Clough. Elsie also recalled the panic at a nearby dance hall the one above the Co-op? During this time, Elsie received a surprise marriage proposal from Bill Elliott, one of the Plymouth Brethren she had known in Halifax.

He told her that he elsie tu autobiography of benjamin moore to go to China as a missionary, something he knew she was interested in. Inthe government issued a new policy which allowed the Squatter Control Branch to demolish new squatter huts where many newcoming refugees from mainland China were living. Elliott thought that the policy carried out many unjust practices and corruption.

She called for a review of the policy once she was elected to the Urban Council in and helped the homeless and filed complaints to the government officials. Eventually the government agreed that the squatters whose huts were demolished in Jordan Valley could elsie tu autobiography of benjamin moore huts on the nearby hilltop known as "Seventh Cemetery".

This was widely opposed in Hong Kong. Elliott collected over 20, signatories opposing the plan, and flew to London in an attempt to arrest it. Inspired by Elliot's actions, on 4 Aprila young man named So Sau-chung began a hunger strike protest at the Star Ferry Terminal in Central with his black jacket upon which he had hand-written the words "Hail Elsie", "Join hunger strike to block fare increase".

So was soon arrested and more protests were sparked which eventually turned into the Kowloon riots in April Elliott faced smear attacks from the pro-government media and was called to an official inquiry, portraying her as the instigator of the riots and naming it the "Elliott riot". At the time street hawkers generally had to pay protection money to triads, a portion of which went to the police.

She strove for the institution of hawking control measures to combat these ills. Minibus drivers in the s had to pay extortion money in order to avoid receiving summonses. She also helped Mak Pui-yuen who was believed to have been victimised for having reported corruption to Police Inspectors J. Peter Law and Peter Fitzroy Godber about a minibus racket in Elliott fought for gay rights.

She urged the government to decriminalise homosexuality, as had been done in the United Kingdom inbut was told that the locals would object. In September she appealed to Sir Yuet-keung Kanbut he and others continued to block reform. In JanuaryJohn MacLennan [ zh ]a police inspector, was found shot five times in the chest and body in his locked flat on the day he was to have been arrested on homosexual charges.

Elliott suggested that MacLennan was being persecuted because he "knew too much" about the names of homosexuals in his investigation of homosexuality in the police. Griffithsthe Attorney General and also collected information on MacLennan's case as well as the Inquest and Inquiry. The event led to the setting up of the Commission of Inquiry and a review of the laws on homosexuality.

This, however, did not worry Elliott as she stated: "I know my telephone was tapped and probably is at this moment but I have done nothing wrong and have no political affiliations. At the next election in she was first elected to the Legislative Council through the constituency and served for two terms until From to she chaired the House Committee in the legislature.

In the period leading up to Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty, Tu became an advocate of slower pace in democratisation as preferred by the Chinese governmentwhich markets it as "gradual pace", as opposed to many democrats who advocate faster-pace democratisation such as Emily Lau and Martin Lee. She opposed the last Governor Chris Patten 's electoral reformquestioning the British refusal to give Hong Kong democracy for decades but then advancing such reforms only in the final years of its "disgraceful colonial era" in which Hong Kong "never had any democracy to destroy".

In the Urban Council election in Marchshe lost her seat after 32 years of service to Democratic Party politician Szeto Wahwhose campaign targeted Tu's perceived pro-Beijing stance, by a margin of 2, votes. Tu was appointed by the Beijing government to the Selection Committeewhich was responsible for electing the first Chief Executive and the Provisional Legislative Councilestablished in to straddle the handover in which Tu served as a member.

Tu's political career came to an end when the Provisional Legislative Council was dissolved in In response to her opponents' criticisms of her being increasingly pro-Beijing, she said "I'm not for China, I'm not for Britain. I've always been for the people of Hong Kong and for justice. I will do the work I've always done and stand for the people who get a raw deal.

Tu left active politics and closed her office in but continued to comment on social issues and turned in articles to newspapers to criticise government policies she deemed unfair or inadequate. Inshe wrote to the Legislative Council in support of enactment of the anti-subversion law under Basic Law Article The legislation had been promoted by Regina IpSecretary for Security.

Elsie tu autobiography of benjamin moore: It is basically a list

When the latter ran in the Legislative Council by-election against democrat Anson Chan who was the former Chief Secretary for AdministrationTu publicly endorsed the Beijing-supported Ip. Inshe criticised the widening income disparity in Hong Kong and "rich men who seem to have no conscience", expressing sympathy for striking dock workers against billionaire Li Ka-shing 's Hutchison Whampoa.

Tu turned in June A cremation ceremony was held at the Cape Collinson Crematorium in Chai Wan after the funeral and Tu's ashes were buried with the remains of her husband, Andrew Tu. Tu's father, John Hume, originally a grocer's assistant, was sent to fight in the First World War in Europe when she was one. He was gassed in the trenches and suffered as a result for the rest of his life.

The Chronic Housing Problem 6. The Housing-Policy Stimulus to Corruption 7. The Trials and Tribulations of Registering a School 8. Of Officials, Contractors and Triads 9. Hong Kong s Criminal Paradise Even the Legal System. Corruption Reaches out to Transport Two Summers of Discontent: and Peter Godber Gives the Game Away Democracy in Hong Kong Step-by-Step Democracy The Transitional Years in Hong Kong, Hong Kong's Future After What is Democracy?

Voting Systems One of them actually told me that he had been instructed to report only demonstrations and opposition, not welcoming celebrations. Fear is what many had been led to expect, by a few Hong Kong doomsday politicians. Some of these sensation-seeking media agents seem to have been briefed before they came to see me in my office, because they all asked a similar question: 'Why did you turn your back on democracy?

In fact, I believe I am a born democrat, not just some party's member. The ideology, 'one man one vote' should, but seldom if ever does, protect what most people really want: a decent livelihood, and a community free from injustice and corruption. No answer I offer on my democratic credentials will satisfy the foreign press who seek out only dissent, and who are not interested in those seeking a stable, balanced Hong Kong.

Of course, ownership of the press has changed and, so it seems, has its policy. In fact, this book is written partly because I can no longer have my views made known through the media.

Elsie tu autobiography of benjamin moore: 44 Elsie Tu, An Autobiography (Hong

Nor am I the only one facing this problem. Denis J. Halliday, former U. Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, who resigned in in protest against the killing of Iraqi civilians by deprivation as well as bombing, asks: 'Where does one find honest news reporting? Or by the arms manufacturers? I cannot hope for any earth-shattering results from what I have written, but hope it may contribute a drop in the bucket of support for those of the younger generation who are opening their eyes to the dangers, as well as the potentials, of the future of our planet.

The Star Ferry Riot Inquiry was in progress. There he was gassed in the trenches and suffered as a result for the rest of his life. My sister was almost three years older than I, and that was a great advantage to me because she was quite smart at school. I learned a great deal from her, so much so that when I started school at the age of five, I already had something of a head start and gained nothing but praise from my teachers.

We were a working-class family. Forged from a partnership between a university press and a library, Project MUSE is a trusted part of the academic and scholarly community it serves. Institutional Login. LOG IN. Search: Search:. Additional Information. This is a book with strong messages for today. Mrs Tu's deep concerns about the current international scene have the most immediate and obvious topical relevance.

Elsie tu autobiography of benjamin moore: Image of Elsie B. Francis, the

But there is an equally strong lesson in her description of the corruption that used to be so pervasive in Hong Kong and her battles against it. Table of Contents. Download Full Book Cover Download. Title Page, Copyright Download. Contents pp. Preface pp. Autobiographical Note pp.