go to home page

... the most recent messages are on top !




Roy Campbell roy.campbell79@gmail.com [weihsien_camp]
To:weihsien_camp@yahoogroups.com
Wed, 31 Oct 2018 at 23:35
Re: [weihsien_camp] Peter Bazire

My name is Maida Harris Campbell and I was in the same class as your father. Our Harris family lived on the Chefoo compound as your fathers family did too. My father was Reg Harris and taught in the school along with your grandfather Reg Bazire so we played together and went to each other's birthday parties. I still look on those childhood years as idyllic until Pearl Harbor when our lives were disrupted. Your grandmother was a lovely lady full of music and fun. In 2004 our class had a reunion I forget where in England and he gave me some of your grandmothers sketches including one of my grandfather and one of me and my dog in Temple Hill internment camp. We had great discussions on how our childhoods had affected our lives. At that reunion and then we met again in Weihsien in 2005 when we were all invited to the 60 th anniversary of our liberation.He was the same Peter that I knew up until we were fifteen Although my father was English my mother was Canadian and we came to Canada after the war. When I was married in 1958 We moved to Prince Edward Island where my husband had grown up on a farm and he was a teacher until he retired 24 years ago. My mother also taught in Chefoo was widowed in 1960 and spent Christmasses and summers with us. They perhaps like you heard many stories of our lives in China and I was able to take all four of them to visit Chefoo and Weihsien.

Thank you for letting us know of your fathers death. We are all 88 this year and there are not many of us left

Sincerely Maida





Audrey Horton raks732@gmail.com [weihsien_camp]
To:weihsien_camp@yahoogroups.com
Wed, 31 Oct 2018 at 17:09
Re: [weihsien_camp] Peter Bazire

I only heard of his passing on October 20th at the Chefoo reunion in Toronto. He always answered my letters when I wrote and asked questions. Ian Grant said your father had not been well. Peter was in my sister Kathleen Nordmo's class. I just entered an obituary of Kathleen onto the weihsien site under the Nordmo section---My sister would have been 88 in January--she passed away in December--How old was your father?

Do you have an obituary you could send me--or one that your family read at the funeral--I do remember the Bazire family--I am Audrey Nordmo Horton and my older siblings Stanley and Kathleen were at the school from 1935-45--and from 40-45.

I know you will miss him greatly--May God comfort you and your family during this time and time to come --when you wish you might have another chat with him. Is your mother still alive? How many siblings do you have? What are they doing.?

In Christ,
Audrey Nordmo Horton





'Peter Bazire' psbazire@yahoo.co.uk [weihsien_camp]
To:Peter Bazire
Wed, 31 Oct 2018 at 16:42
[weihsien_camp] Peter Bazire

Dear all,

In case you are not aware, my father Peter Bazire died on 16 September 2018. This email address will be monitored for a couple more weeks, but I intend to arrange a disconnection of the phone/internet by the end of November. I apologise if this appears abrupt but I am sure you will understand.

If you need to contact me, please write to me at:
House Martin
Amesbury Road
Weyhill
Andover
Hampshire
UK
SP11 8DP

Many thanks,
Martin Bazire





From: Angela
Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2018 7:39 AM
To: Leopold Pander ; Leopold_Pander
Subject: Fw: Desmond POWER: a 2013 article from the North Shore News

1045 pm Sat oct 13 Birch bay

Hi Leopoold,

[excerpt]
Desmond Power - Mr tientsin passed away Sept 10 th- his halfsister betty Lambert can you post on weishien groups ?/ for all to know.

His mother Gracie my birth god mother Irish Catholic .. the Lao Tai Tai
cheers angela

Forwarded Message -----
From: A R Taylor
To: angela elliott
Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2018 3:05 PM
Subject: Desmond POWER: a 2013 article from the North Shore News

&
https://www.nsnews.com/lifestyle/seniors/west-vancouver-man-shares-internment-story-1.358786

&
West Vancouver man shares internment story

Parliament to honour kind actions of camp commandant
Laura Anderson / North Shore News
JUNE 2, 2013 01:00 AM

Desmond Power plays a guitar in London in 1947 that had been given to him by musician Earl West whom he had met when they were in a Japanese prison camp in China during the Second World War.
Photo SUBMITTED

DESMOND Power was almost seven when he ran away from home, fleeing the consequences of an unfortunate incident involving matches and a sofa.

Out on the dykes at the edge of the city of Tientsin, China, young Desmond appealed to a rickshaw driver to transport him far, far away.

Request denied. "Aren't you the grandson of 'lao tai-tai?' It would be more than my life is worth," he was told.

Desmond's grandmother, Agnes D'Arc, whose title translates loosely as "aged matriarch," was well-known.

"Even grandmother's mynah bird would suddenly screech out for the whole city to hear, "Lao tai-tai! Lao tai-tai!" Desmond remembers.

Desmond was born in 1923, the youngest child of the D'Arc's only daughter, Grace, and Stephen Power, an Irishman who had immigrated to find work in Tientsin's British concession on his brother's advice: "There's a living to be made out here."

Beginning in 1860 in Tientsin and in Shanghai as far back as 1842, the Chinese had assigned concession territories to most European countries. By the 1930s, the mix of cultures had produced a worldly, sophisticated society where theatre, art and music flourished as war drew nearer.

When the Second World War broke out on the other side of the world, Desmond enlisted in the local Volunteer Defense Corps.. He was only 17 but the uniform got Desmond into nightclubs where he was introduced to hot jazz and swing performed by expatriate musicians like Earl Whaley.

By 1943, prison camps had been established in China by the Japanese. Black American musicians, who had found a haven from racism in the cosmopolitan environs of Shanghai and Tientsin, were not discriminated against by the Japanese, who interned them equally with the allied nationals.

The musicians brought the life-enhancing sounds of jazz and swing with them into the camps. Years later, Desmond remembers in his book, Little Foreign Devil, "What a godsend, that band, lifting the camp's morale as nothing else could."

At 20, Desmond entered Pootung, the first of three Japanese prison camps which would confine him for the duration of the war. The next camp, Lunghua, was a vast improvement, not least due to the humanitarian actions of the camp's Commandant Hayashi towards the prisoners.

Hayashi arranged for Desmond to be transferred to the Weihsien camp where he was reunited with his mother, half-brother and half-sister. There he became friends with another expat musician, guitarist Earl West and his wife, Deirdre. After liberation, Earl gave Desmond his resonant guitar, which he took with him to England and New Zealand.

In England, Desmond met and married Canadian Deborah Vass. The newlyweds immigrated to New Zealand in 1955 where Desmond designed and installed computer systems. They moved to Canada, settling in West Vancouver in 1960 and raising four children.

In demand all over North America for his expertise in new technology, Desmond found time to locate and connect fellow prison camp veterans by sharing research through the Old China Hands network.

One gratifying discovery was the daughter of Earl and Deirdre West, whom Desmond had known when she was a toddler in Weih-sien camp. In another case, a researcher had been using Desmond's online resources for some time before chance revealed they are both residents of West Vancouver.

In retirement, this third-generation China hand wrote his autobiography, Little Foreign Devil, and articles on things like the jazz scene and daily life in the prison camps, the experience of his D'Arc grandparents in the Boxer Uprising and the story of their internationally acclaimed marionette troupe. They're an eclectic portrayal of periods, places and events, the effects of which continue to exert their influence.

On Thursday, June 6, the anniversary of D-Day, Tomohiko Hayashi, who helped Desmond and countless others, will be recognized in the Canadian Parliament with a statement of thanks for his efforts to save and preserve the lives of prisoners in Shanghai.

Desmond continues to write, most recently about his standoff with a bear on a daily walk. As the bear moved on to the home of Desmond's neighbours, a Chinese family, Desmond reverted to his mother tongue, alerting them in Mandarin about the gou-xiong.

Desmond Power's book and articles can be found on the website, Scribd.

Laura Anderson works with and for seniors on the North Shore.
Contact her at 778-279-2275 or email her at lander1@shaw.ca.





'Sancton' sancton@nbnet.nb.ca [weihsien_camp]
To:weihsien_camp@yahoogroups.com
Sat, 13 Oct 2018 at 02:16
[weihsien_camp] Desmond Power

I have just heard from Deborah Power that Desmond Power had died September 10th. His book the Little Foreign Devil tells his story and of the various prisoner of war camps he was in before being reunited with his mother, Gladys Lambert in Weihsien

He seems to have lived a full and exciting life. I wish I had met him though we did email occasionally. He must have been a fascinating person.

Christine Talbot Sancton