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 […]
I was pleased to accept a term of gardening leave from my blogging duties when my alter ego Maria Spackman decided to take over the captain’s chair, but you can’t keep a good (and original!) […]
The Year of the Dog came bounding in, knocking over the furniture and turning the world upside down for Your Settled Girl Reporter. The noble hound has offered me a special assignment which I can’t […]
Joan Byrne, my Honorary Aunt, had a few reasons to land in London in December 1969, where we last saw her caring for her aged uncle – fulfilling the promise she made as a child […]
Is it just me or is everyone feeling a tad more optimistic with the pending arrival of the Year of the Dog? And why not? According to Chinese Astrology, Dog brings honesty, courage, generosity – […]
Sally Baxter, Girl Reporter is a fictional character whose persona I adopted when I had the bright idea five years ago of starting a blog. My name is Maria Spackman and it’s time to come […]
The first kill is the hardest. It gets easier after that. Since my last filing from the Baxter backyard the itchy cow tree has been terminated with extreme prejudice. When we raised our flag at […]
The continuing adventures of my honorary aunt Joan ‘The Bone’ Byrne, my father’s cousin, who left Australia with us in 1967. The plan was to travel across Asia and Europe and on to England but […]
The kitchen at our flat in Macdonnell Road in Hong Kong backed on to a dank, rat-infested space, a convenient landing spot for rubbish hurled from the windows above. Mr Chan, the building manager, was […]
…The Bolshoi theatre serving whole meals in the foyer at interval… the Arts Theatre, home of Stanislavski, where I saw a play in Russian… the woman sitting next to me trying to translate it for […]
Copyright: Maria Spackman
