The Day Trip to HongKong begins 100 years ago.

On Saturday the 10th September 1910 my Great-Grandfather - Thomas
Roebuck Day, his wife Marion Dalo Dallenger-Day and their two sons
Thomas Hedley Gordon Day (my paternal Grandfather) and Frederick Day
set sail at 2.30 pm from the Royal Albert Dock on the SS Namur (a P&O
Steamer), proceeded down the Thames and anchored below Gravesend
until 12 o'clock midnight. Arriving off the Isle of Wight at about
2.30 am on Sunday morning.

This was the beginning of a 40 day sea journey which took them to
HongKong, via the Mediterranean, Port Said, through the Suez Canal,
through the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, visiting Ceylon (as it was known
then), Penang, & Singapore. They lived in HongKong until May 1915
when they had to endure the return voyage to England, taking on
refuges, a burial at sea, running the guantlet of German U-boats in
the Mediterranean.

My Great-Grandfather wrote a brilliant diary about the sea voyages
and the family's life in Hongkong, which I think is a revealing
social comment on the attitudes and lives of British people at that
time.  In this blog I will publish my Great Grandfather's diary as he wrote it, starting soon with the family's very brief preparations to pack up home in Plymouth and make the journey by train to London.

http://twitter.com/DaloDallenger