Aelfthryth Gittings 1939-2012

Chile and Hong Kong

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In 1966 Aelfthryth with John and the young Danny travelled by boat to Chile, where John (with Richard Gott) was helping the Chilean scholar Claudio Veliz to set up a new Institute of International Affairs at the University of Chile in Santiago.
In 1967, with baby Tom (born in Chile), the family explored southern Chile, and later travelled to La Paz by train from Arica, crossed Lake Titicaca into Peru and visited Machu Picchu and Cuzco. We travelled – as we informed anxious parents in UK -- “with 100 disposable nappies, pushchair, portable cot, countless string bags and bottles for boiled water, 12 tins of Ideal Milk, etc. Everyone here [Santiago] is horrified, but we are excited”.
In 1968 John became a commentator on China for the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong. We lived in the clouds on Lugard Road, and commuted into central Hong Kong by the Peak Tram. Aelfthryth taught English in Kowloon, and declined to have a living-in "amah". In 1969 the family travelled back to England via the Soviet Union, taking the trans-Siberian from Nakhodka in the Soviet Far East.

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1967: Manquehue, the mountain peak above Santiago

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1967: Santiago Richard Gott with Aelfthryth and Danny

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1968: virew of 34b Lugard Road from High Mount

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1969: Sunset over China from Lugard Road

  
 
 

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1967: Machu picchu

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1967: Bolivia, capital of Tihuanaco

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1968: View of harbour from Lugard Road

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1969: China (Shenzhen) across the Hong Kong border