Hong Kong Collectors Society brings city's past into focus for 20th anniversary

Christopher Newall owes his love affair with postcards to his father-in-law. An Italian commander who served in Ethiopia, the old man kept mementoes from that period in a big wardrobe at home.

One day, Newall says, "I opened it up and found it stacked with pictures of dusky maidens from Eritrea, chiefs and armies, and all this sort of stuff and I just fell in love with postcards."

That was in 1976 and the Briton has been fascinated ever since. A former senior government counsel, Newall helped work out the legal framework for Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. He returned to Britain following the handover, but a special occasion has brought him back to the city this month: the 20th anniversary of the Hong Kong Collectors Society, a group he founded with a few like-minded friends. It's an event he couldn't miss.

Newall's posting in 1985 changed the focus of his collecting: "When I knew I was coming to Hong Kong, I went around England and got, for next to nothing, around 400 Hong Kong postcards. I arrived here ready to proselytise the virtues of ancient postcards."

He soon came across others who shared his enthusiasm for collecting and for the history of Hong Kong; in particular, three men he kept running into while scouring antique shops. Increasingly drawn together, the four decided in 1994 to start a society, where they could pool expertise or swap collectibles.

His description of their formation almost recalls the assembly of crack teams in a classic heist movie: "There's me, postcard maniac. There's Dr William Tong Cheuk-man, a medical consultant for Queen Elizabeth Hospital, he had two passions: the Swedish explorer Sven Hedin and the Japanese Occupation ... Alan Cheung was the transport guy … he was after anything having to do with trams. And then there was Cheng Po-hung, a stamp dealer. He was the philatelic input."