This is my first Hong Kong Christmas in a long time, so it’s only right that we revisit a day out spent with my family on our first Christmas Day in Hong Kong in 1967.
I was five and my sister Alin had just turned two a few days earlier. The Spackman family headed down to Statue Square in Hong Kong’s Central district. And we took our cameras.
My father Jack was a keen photographer – and a pretty good one, too. He was also a born teacher. He taught me how to use a camera and, when he was setting up shots at home, would give me the job of reading the light meter, to check shadows and highlights on the subject.
Often the subject was us – sometimes posed, often not – and it’s these pictures which make up the bulk of my collection from those days. The Christmas photographs fall into that category.
Dad photographing me…
When I sorted through them it took a little while to realise what they showed – a unique record of a typical day out for the Spackman family. We spent that afternoon, like so many others, taking pictures of each other.
There’s my mother Margaret, taken by me. And there’s me photographing Dad, while Dad photographs me. And we all photographed Alin – it was fun trying to work out who took which shot.
It must have been one of the last outings for the old Rolleiflex, and – being Christmas – could well have been the first outing for Dad’s Nikkormat, an affordable version of the professional Nikon camera. Mum always liked small, compact cameras and so the one I am using would be hers.
… while I photograph Dad.
It’s entirely possible that all those days out which began with my father’s suggestion, “let’s go and take a few pictures,” were born that Christmas afternoon.
I was never given my own camera and it was an enormous privilege to be allowed to use Dad’s. And there were rules. If there’s one life lesson he impressed upon me, it was to never let your camera strap dangle off a table.
A camera must be placed well away from table’s edge with strap tucked neatly around it to avoid any danger of it being caught up and dropped. When taking pictures, wrap the strap round your wrist as well as your neck so that if you get knocked the camera won’t have far to fall.
I follow these instructions to this day, with all the religiosity of one of Ignatius Loyola’s seven-year-olds (“Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man.” The exact origin of that quote is in dispute, but my Jesuit-educated father attributed it to Loyola so I will too).
There’s truth in the saying, if my early lessons in photography are any guide. Put a camera in my hand and the first thing I’ll do is put the strap around my neck or wrap it around my wrist, as if the likelihood of me dropping it is unchanged from when I was seven. It’s harder to do both, now that the strap is so much shorter than it used to be.
The lack of a built-in light meter marks Dad’s first Nikkormat as an FS, the cheapest of its class. It was soon joined by an FT and it’s that one I remember most, sitting ever present – and well away from the edge of the table – in dim sum restaurants, market food stalls and cafes all over Hong Kong, its outlying islands and the New Territories.
My sister Alin, aged 2, photographed by Jack, Margaret and Maria Spackman. Christmas Day, 1967.
He had other cameras – and I’m pretty sure they were always Nikon – but that old FT kept going for years – still getting a trot out on family outings well into the 1980s, long after the Rolleiflex had been abandoned into an old forgotten box somewhere.
It was in such a box that I found the Christmas Day photographs. They aren’t particularly great photographs and they don’t show anything very remarkable, but of all the pictures we took they are my favourites. Just the Spackman family enjoying what was to become a typical day out.
Some things haven’t changed – Hong Kong’s Statue Square is still a spot to pose for photographs.
© Maria Spackman 2018
This is my last post for 2018. It’s been my tradition to take a summer break. That was Australia, this is Hong Kong, so I’m settling down for a well-earned winter’s snooze. It’s greatly needed at the end of a tumultuous year.
Thank you for sticking with me while I’ve set up the Hong Kong bureau. I’ll be back at the beginning of February, just in time for my Lunar New Year predictions.
With best wishes for a peaceful Christmas and a 2019 filled with a little more peace, love and understanding than we’ve seen of late.
Your Girl Reporter
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