Born in captivity, raised in freedom

On the eve of the 70th anniversary of Hong Kong's liberation from Japanese occupation, Dennis Clarke and George Cautherley revisited Stanley Internment Camp where their lives began. Chitralekha Basu reports.

"I am a child of internment," George Cautherley said. "My mother told me I was conceived in a brothel hotel in the western district of Hong Kong." Cautherley's parents, Dorothy and George, a British couple, were among the "enemy nationals" rounded up and taken to a rather sleazy hovel, near the present-day Macao Ferry Terminal, soon after the Japanese seized Hong Kong on Dec 25, 1941.

The detainees were crammed into a cheap hotel with nearly 1,000 other people. They didn't know how long the ordeal would last or, indeed, whether they would survive it. To ease the unrelenting mental tension, Cautherley's parents decided to focus on something other than the situation they found themselves in. Having a baby seemed a good idea.