An Intriguing Photo from Late Imperial Hong Kong – Dick Hughes & a Mate… Help Needed

Posted: July 29th, 2023 | No Comments »

Rereading Jan Morris’s brilliant Hong Kong: Epilogue to Empire (1988) I saw this photograph included. It is simply entitled ‘Expatriates, 1980s’. Two middle aged white men, smoking and drinking with what may be a bit of rather sad and lonely Christmas bunting behind them. Only these are not two unimportant men.

The man on the left – bald and with a trademark monocle – is the veteran Australian-born foreign correspondent, FCC fixture and John le Carre’s model for Old Craw in The Honourable Schoolboy (1975), Richard “Dick” Hughes (1906-1984) and Dikko Henderson in Ian Fleming’s Bond novel You Only Live Twice (1964). The photo was, according to Morris’s credits, was Ken Hass (born 1948), an American photographer who I believe later taught at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Now….though Hughes was dead by the time Morris visited to research the final chapters of Hong Kong, they had met on previous visits. So she clearly knew he was in the photo she selected.

My question is, who is the other man? What I do know is that he is the man featured taking a piss in the famous view from the toilets at the former FCC building in the now demolished Sutherland House (a scene and view immortalised by le Carre in THS. I mentioned this recently in my South China Morning Post piece on le Carre’s 1970s Hong Kong visits. A photo of it by Richard Lloyd remains in the current FCC men’s toilets on Lower Albert Road. I think it’s the same man, perhaps a few years later – see picture below.

But who is he? I know I should I know, but frustratingly I don’t. But I bet I know someone who does? Help please? Not knowing is bugging me!!

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