Denis Bray, 77, is a true son of Hong Kong. The former Secretary for Home Affairs, director of the Community Chest, chairman of the English Schools Foundation and occasionally acting Governor, was born here. He is a fluent Cantonese-speaker and was involved in some of the most momentous decisions made by the British administration. The only time his career took him away from Hong Kong was when he was appointed Hong Kong Commissioner in London in 1977. Prior to that he had been District Commissioner for the New Territories and held numerous positions in the government. He first made his presence felt following the Christmas Day fire in Shek Kip Mei in 1953, when at 6am on Boxing Day he gate-crashed a meeting convened by the governor, Sir Alexander Gratham. He was 27 and had been with the government just two years.
That fire left 50,000 people homeless. It was a critical moment because up to then the government had more and more people to be resettled, but refused to build structures to house them. I knew there was no way we could put 50,000 people in camp. So I said: 'Well, we'd better put up something then.' The squatters were to be cleared, so why not let them start then?
They were horrified at the suggestion, but the first resettlement blocks were put up. For a long time they wouldn't clear the squatter areas, because they didn't want the land for development. Eventually, they were cleared.
My first posting when I arrived [back] in 1950 was to the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, but the job I enjoyed most was that of District Officer, Tai Po [1954-56], because you were concerned with the whole of life in your district - not just one aspect.
Up to 1971, the New Territories was left very much to itself. By then a great many of the old original people had left. There was a tremendous exodus in the late 60s to restaurants in Britain. Life was very difficult and communications were lousy. Transport was by footpaths and sampans. It's not surprising that so many people took off.
I helped set up the District Boards/Councils. The first one was set up in Tsuen Wan. When they were first set up, we made it clear they could discuss everything. They had no executive powers but they could discuss anything. They could discuss education, even though you couldn't put them in charge of education. They couldn't give the police orders, but they could discuss their performance.
The City District Offices were set up in 1968. They were ordinary shop fronts with displays from the Government Information Services and enquiry counters. They had to get into the local communities and listen to what people was saying. That was their job. Prior to that time, the only senior men in the districts were the police superintendents, who were great supporters of the District Officer Scheme. They had some remarkable successes. One was to reverse the flow in one-way streets. You would think it would have been simple, but it wasn't.
