The Minto Express – Pauline Kerr, Editor-in-Chief

Local author speaks about growing up in wartime Shanghai
… The horrors of war and the Japanese occupation, dramatic though they were, took second place to the sights and sounds of the city, and how they changed as the war progressed. …In describing the family’s move to a camp, Margaret states, “At first my brother and I weren’t really aware of the danger – we ran and played with the other children.” … She describes the blue toy giraffe poking his head out of the pillowcase that held her belongings as the family moved from place to place.
     She recalls the cruelty – the Japanese treated the Chinese horribly, and by the war’s end, there was little food to eat in the camps. But her memoirs paint colourful, fascinating and often witty pictures.
     Despite the war, Margaret describes her return to England as a sad time. “My parents were returning to friends and family; my brother remembered a bit of his visit to relatives. But I was leaving the land of my birth.” One of her final memories of Shanghai was the noise – the unique sound of the city that had resumed when the war ended.