Crime, Justice and Punishment

Crime, Justice and Punishment in Colonial Hong Kong by May Holdsworth and Christopher Munn, with photographs and pictures sourced by David Bellis, was published earlier this year by Hong Kong University Press. Long anticipated, it is really the authoritative history of the whole former Police/Gaol/Magistracy compound in central Hong Kong, now known as Tai Kwun, in its re-developed incarnation. This coming Monday, 5th October 2020 at 7.15 the May, Chris and David will be talking at JC Cube in Tai Kwun about the heritage and working of these amazing buildings. Their talk and the q&a session that follows is the latest in the Tai Kwun Conversations series.

I really, REALLY wish I could be there for this - its guaranteed to be fascinating and to reveal many hidden secrets of the complex series of buildings which evolved over 150 and more years. Unfortunately its not being live-streamed, so for those of us stuck elsewhere in the world, we'll just have to wait until happier times, when perhaps there will be other events to hear these three experts.

The power of three ... was it just chance that when I was trying to come up with a title for my Women, Crime and the Courts, I'd been at a lunch with these three. Afterwards, May and Chris were trying to dissuade me from the blood-thirsty title that had been the result of a rather late night in a Wanchai bar - and of which I was (thankfully) having second thoughts anyway. I'm not convinced that I actually came up with the final title - or, at least, I was heavily steered! At that point I didn't know the title of their latest book.