illustrations ...

Map of Northern China. Cartography: Georgie Perry

Chinese Imperial honour given Colonel Cooke. Photograph: Georgie Perry.

Niong Niong and her daughter with me. Photograph restoration: Advance Photo.

My parents with me as an infant. Photograph restoration: Advance Photo

My maternat grandmother as a child. Photograph restoration: Advance Photo.

Brother Eddie with me at a Tsingtao beach. Photograph restoration: Advance Photo.

Tsingtao Christmas concert 1942 given by child prisoners of the Japanese. Photograph restoration: Advance Photo.

A dormitory block at the prison camp. Photograph restoration: Advance Photo.

Eddie's Boy Scout 'daily good deeds' book compiled in prison. Photograph: Georgie Perry.

Japanese guard post at the camp. Done by fellow prisoner. Photograph: Georgie Perry.

The "Honey-Pot" man ...

Father Scanlan on his 100th birthday in California. To the left is his signature in my prison camp autograph book. Photograph montage: Georgie Perry, photograph of Father Scanlan, Sister Marie Masbridge.

A pressed flower from the prison given to me when sick. Photograph: Georgie Perry.

diploma

US military aircraft dropping supplies to camp taken by fellow prisoner. Photograph restoration: Advance Photo.

B-29 bombers droping food canisters over Block-23

Swiss consul's map of the camp and the leaflet the US dropped informing us of coming food and clothing supplies delivered by parachute. Photograph: Georgie Perry.

My prison autograph book drawing of a parachute with the signatures of all the American parachutists. Photograph: Georgie Perry.

How the 'Sidney Morning Herald' reported the end of World War II to Australians. Inset: my 'B' for British prisoner armband. Photograph: Georgie Perry.

Author taking a break as US Red Crosss worker in Tsingtao - 1946.

'Gordon after five' and author in Singapore - early 1950s.

Unsuccessful Miss Singapore candidate - 1953.

My wedding day in Sydney with husband Bob and my parents.

Bob and me with our sons - Tom, George and Bill. Photograph: Michelle (Oyston) Bradbury.

Bob and me outside my parents' former Tsingtao home - 1986. Photograph: Stan Fairchild.

Eddie and me in 2000 in Sydney with Sister Hugh Smith - Father Scanlan's cousin. Photograph: Georgie Perry.

Me, in Tsingtao, now Qingdao ... August 2005.