Behind every great Chairman there’s a hard-working woman. Sometimes she’s vilified, sometimes she’s ignored. When it came to the foundation of the Hong Kong Journalists Association on 1 April 1968, the driving force was my mother Margaret Spackman. And for 50 years, her contribution was largely overlooked.
As the HKJA’s first secretary, her role was crucial in the fight for better conditions for Hong Kong’s journalists. Recognition of her work is long overdue.
My mother was in urgent need of a job when we arrived in Hong Kong in February 1967 on the SS Chusan. We had been on our way to Bangkok with plans of travelling through Asia and Europe when my father was struck down – not for the first or last time – with pneumonia. We were forced ashore in Hong Kong, where we stayed for the next 20 years.
A carefully preserved cutting from one of the Sydney newspapers recording our departure from Australia in February 1967. Courtesy Ann-Maree Spackman
On our first day, Mum had seen her sick husband admitted into hospital and found cheap accommodation at the YMCA in Tsimshatsui for the family – two small children under the age of five and a mother-in-law who was nursing a broken arm, following a fall on the ship.
The adventure of a lifetime was not turning out well.
On the second day, undaunted, Mum left Grandma in charge and headed to the offices of the South China Morning Post, where she secured a reporting job.
I cannot fathom the extent of my mother’s courage. In a strange town, with all the odds against her, she quickly found her feet and formed close working relationships with the Chinese, English and foreign journalists on the beat.
Margaret was immediately appalled by the working conditions for the Hong Kong press corps and it wasn’t long before she was determined to do something about it.
“Wages and conditions were all over the place,” Margaret said. “When you applied for a job you were asked how much you wanted to be paid. No one talked about how much they earned, so it was all a matter of stabbing in the dark.
“If you asked for too little, other staff wouldn’t talk to you because they feared their wages would be cut. If you asked too much… you didn’t get the job.”
When the 1967 disturbances began a few months later Mum was on the front line with her fellow Girl and Boy Reporters, covering the riots, the jailings and the court appearances.
She was up close enough to see the injuries on the defendants as they stood in the dock, close enough to know they had been sustained, not on the street but in the jailhouse.
Mum was disturbed enough to tell your young Girl Reporter some of what she had seen, and she was sure that many of the people caught up in the disturbances had no great interest in the politics of the day.
They were simply desperate for a more decent existence for themselves and their families.
Confrontation between protesters and police in Hong Kong, 1967. From a Ta Kung Pao collection published in November that year, called The Upheaval in Hong Kong.
“Because of what was happening over the border in China most of the Europeans had run away,” Mum said.
“Much of my reporting during this period was centred around the riots and their effects. I also had to learn my way round Hong Kong and develop good relationships with my fellow reporters.”
Out on the streets Margaret also witnessed the appalling treatment of local journalists who were just doing their jobs. It was not uncommon for reporters to be attacked.
During one of these episodes, a Chinese reporter was injured and later died. His newspaper gave his family HK$200 towards the funeral costs, and nothing more.
“Something had to be done to get some protection for people out on the job,” Margaret said.
It was over a dinner to console the sacked snapper that the idea of a union was born
In late 1967 Dad was working as a casual sub-editor on the China Mail when a young photographer called Hugh van Es was summarily sacked from the newspaper after a run-in with the Editor.
Dad started a petition to get him reinstated, to no avail. Van Es went on to work for UPI and took the defining picture of the fall of Saigon – the one everyone knows, of the ladder of people clambering on to a helicopter – which just goes to show that out of every crisis comes opportunity.
It was over dinner – in the Diamond Restaurant in Lockhart Road, Wanchai – to console the sacked snapper that the idea of a union was born.
Both Jack and Margaret were members of the Australian Journalists Association – forerunner of today’s Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance – so it’s no wonder they proposed establishing a similar organisation in Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong Journalists Association was formally registered on 1 April, 1968
But in those volatile times, with the Communist-led disturbances still flaring occasionally, it was potentially not a great time to be identified as a leftist. None of the founding members knew what to expect, but a sudden end to their employment prospects was deemed a real possibility.
They unanimously agreed that Jack should lead the union. With his casual employment status, he had the least to lose.
It took six months to formulate a constitution and meet all the other requirements of the Trades Union Registrar and I have no doubt that the bulk of that work was done by my mother.
The Hong Kong Journalists Association was formally registered on 1 April 1968 with Jack Spackman as chair. Richard Lee, chief reporter of the China Mail, was one of the vice-chairs, along with John Stubbs, while the rest of the committee consisted of Paul Dougherty, Vian Ewart and Yeung Chun Sing.
My mother was the union’s first secretary, a role she performed in addition to her duties as main breadwinner for her young family.
“We started the Hong Kong Journalists Association by simply registering it,” Margaret said.
“I don’t think any government official came to question us about why we started the union. We just did it and didn’t publicise it, except among ourselves.
“We got an invitation from someone in the government to attend a meeting for Prince Charles… which showed there wasn’t any deep antagonism to what we were trying to do from the authorities, but the publishers of the Chinese newspapers weren’t too happy about it.”
Nevertheless, from that moment it was generally assumed in the Spackman household that our telephone was tapped.
Some examples of my father Jack Spackman’s freelance work. With his casual job status, he had the least to lose by fronting the new journalists’ union in Hong Kong. From The Spackman Files
In those early days the unionists held meetings all over the place – in tea houses, at the Hilton Hotel, the Foreign Correspondents Club and, of course, at the Spackman flat in Macdonnell Road.
My mother’s main job as secretary was to visit and support sick reporters who were in various institutions in Hong Kong. And, of course, the endless minute-taking, typing, circulating, organising – all the while holding down a job and a chaotic household.
Mum said the work involved was arduous and long. If it was galling to her that my charismatic Dad got most of the credit for the union’s success, she didn’t show it.
Money was always tight, with survival dependent on membership drives and contributions from the founding members as they could afford it.
Opening night for the Hong Kong Press Club in 1973, attended by the then-British colony’s governor Sir Murray Maclehose. Picture: The Spackman Files
“We needed some space where we could get together and work together, which is why we started the Hong Kong Press Club a few years later in 1973,” Margaret said.
“One of the Chinese press knew someone who had some space at a place in Wanchai which we latched on to, and the money we made through the operation of the Press Club also boosted income for the union.”
The idea of the Press Club – long since gone – was a source of bitter dispute in the Spackman household. My father thought it was too big a risk and gave Mum no support. She pressed on, in typical dogged fashion, and the Press Club opened in December 1973.
Again, it was Chairman Jack who was at the forefront and who greeted the Governor Sir Murray Maclehose at the opening of the tiny venue. I don’t believe the Press Club ever enjoyed a heavy flow of cash across the bar, but it served its purpose.
The first real test of the union came the following year when the China Mail closed suddenly in August 1974. Jack, as leader of the dispute which followed, now became truly notorious in Hong Kong.
The tiny Press Club was campaign headquarters throughout the China Mail Affair, as it was known. It was the first industrial action in Hong Kong in which Chinese and foreign workers stood side by side as equals.
Today the HKJA continues to be run by working journalists for the sole purpose of improving the working environment for the newsgatherers of Hong Kong.
It still survives solely on the contributions of its members and fund-raisers and has a proud record of standing up for the public’s right to know, continually speaking out and fighting against barriers to the free and fair coverage of the news.
But it would never have happened without Margaret Spackman. The early decision to keep her name off the books, as it were, was a necessary one at the time but it obscured the tireless efforts of a truly great Girl Reporter.
© Maria Spackman 2018
Further reading:
In 2018 the Hong Kong Journalists Association celebrated its 50th anniversary. Your Girl Reporter was honoured to be on the scene:
Jack Spackman’s reflections on the founding of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, at its 25th anniversary:
The inside story on Margaret Spackman’s work to establish a headquarters for the Hong Kong Journalists Association:
More on Hugh van Es, whose sacking from a Hong Kong newspaper was a catalyst for the formation of the Hong Kong Journalists Association:
A detailed account of the China Mail affair, and the crucial role played by the Hong Kong Journalists Association:
Margaret Spackman deserves great respect for her efforts in support of fellow journalists, while at the same time raising a family. I remember her well as she was one of the first journalists I met when I joined the SCMP in 1968. In 1971 she and Jack were two of the friends who turned up to bid my wife and myself farewell when we left on a ship bound for Japan and the USSR.