Community Stories: What has the Toll House Got in Common with Hong Kong?

In 2017 the Fourish project brought together stories from different communities inspired by buildings at Chiltern Open Air Museum. In this extract Mai Sim explains how the Toll House reminds her of Hong Kong.

“In the middle of 1970s, we came to UK to join my father who had been in UK since 1967. The house was a 3 bedroom flat above a Chinese restaurant and next door was the staff flat. We used to use the concrete front gardens of both flats as our badminton court.  The flat was on two levels. It consisted of 3 bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs and with a large living room and kitchen/dinner downstairs. There was a type of balcony facing the high street but we never used it because it was very dusty and cold outside. For us it was luxury as we had room to play outside. We had hot and cold water and we had a separate room to sleep in (even though four children shared the bedroom) because one of the bedrooms was taken up with a family of three – a couple with a baby.  For the present-day standard, this may be a bit cramped, but for me, it was the space I craved.  The dwelling we left behind was a very different set up.

I was reminded of my Hong Kong home while looking at the Amersham Toll House at Chiltern Open Air Museum, with its chamber pot and one bedroom shared by the whole family.

The accommodation in Hong Kong was a largish room in a public housing estate. The estate was series of 42 blocks of L shaped flats with 7 floors. Some had an extra floor which was used as a Roof-top schools. This estate housed over one thousand families, and was dug out of a remote hill.  The people were from low income families, prostitutes and drug users.  

When Mum went out to work, she would have to lock the metal gate outside our main door with a heavy chain and a lock. Then she would give me the key. I used to sleep next the gate and wait for Mum to return and open the door for her. This was for our own safety; we were not allowed to go out to play on our own. I used to worry whether I would be able to open the metal gate in time, in the event of a fire.  

The flat we lived in was square shape consisting of two sections. The utility room is where the only big window in the flat was. It faced the opposite block of flats and we could see right into their rooms! The large window rattled furiously during typhoons. This area was used for bathing, cooking, washing and drying clothes (a rack near the ceiling). There was a toilet patch where we had a Chamber pot (just like the one in the Toll House). When the pot was full, it would have to be emptied into the main toilets in the block at the other end of the corridor (about 10 doors down).  It was either Mum or I who did this and I remember being worried the pot somehow it get dropped en-route. I dreaded the thought of having to clear it up!  Thankfully, it never happened!

To take a wash we just used the hose that was attached to the only cold water source in the room.  In the summer, we used to hose ourselves with the cold water but in the winter, we had a wipe down from a wooden barrel we also used for washing clothes and bathing (very similar to the tin bath hanging up at the back of the Toll House).

I remember that I had baths in this with my sister at around six years old; it took a long time to boil the water. As we got older, we had to use a bucket of hot water to wash instead to save time and money.

We used a little paraffin cooker to cook. My Mum placed it on the floor for safety, instead of on the built in tile work top. I started to cook at six years, with my Mum giving me verbal instructions. I used a large Chinese cleaver to cut food up as well as the using the paraffin heater which used to make me very nervous. Sometime later I heard how paraffin cookers were a main cause of fatalities and fires during that era. Looking back, it was a bit like camping.

We kept chickens underneath the worktop, next to the drain. We used to buy chicks and keep them until they were ready to eat near the Chinese New Year. This is the only time we had a whole chicken to eat (although my mum had to find neighbours to kill them for her first).

I remember one year when we had to visit my Grand Parents in China. Mum left the chickens out and left food and water for them. When we came back the room was full of chicken poo and the chickens were perching where they pleased. So the next year, she had them killed and salted before we left so we had something to eat on our return! We did not have a fridge in the house – there was no room!

In the rest of the square of the flat was where the family work, rested and played. It contained the largest furniture which was a double bed bunk. My family of four slept in the bunk 2 up and 2 down (a little like the Toll house family who all shared the same bedroom). I used to sleep with my sister in the top bunk. At the end of the top bunk, there was a storage cupboard where I used to shut myself in to get my own space. Sometimes I would fall asleep in there.  When the weather was really hot, I would lay down on the cool tile floor to go to sleep.

There was a mid-height wardrobe on the left of the bed and on top there were a piece of glass with the family photo underneath and a radio on top.  At that time ghost stories were all the rage and I used to listen to the broadcast late in the evening while waiting for my mum to come home from work. I always hoped that she would bring some food back. It was my favourite time, because I was always hungry! I laid on the concrete floor and watched as the legs walk past our house to the end of the corridor where the stairs were. Listening to the heels of shoes getting closer was agony but I stayed where I was as I had no concept of time and did not know when my Mum would be coming back. When she finally arrived home I would be rewarded with the first choice of the surplus food from her ad hoc catering work. That was the best time for me; it was then I could sleep with a full stomach (although we did not like the curry she bought back and did not know what to do with the block of butter either).

We had a table and chairs which we kept folded up unless they were being used in order to provide us with some clear space. We not only used the table for dining but for doing outsource work such as sticking leather patches, making live Chicken carrier bags, putting together artificial flower near Christmas time for export (we did not celebrate Christmas then). We even wrapped up boxes and boxes of Chocolates. I remember that I worked late into the night. I don’t know how much Mum got paid for the work - for me it was just a game.

Years later, when I visited the soon to be demolished flat, I realised the flat was very tiny, but us 3 children found ways to amuse ourselves. We used to play role play games and build little tents using a big black umbrella and a bed sheet and stayed in them for hours.  We read our library books and did our homework without being told!”