When I lived in Hong Kong, I not only learned to adjust my vocabulary to British English, but also learned a slew of foreign words adopted into the English language there.
Like godown. It’s a Malay word for warehouse, preferably dock-side. And shroff, which comes from the Hindi/Urdu/Arabic word for money changer. Then there’s amah, a Portuguese word for wet nurse, which in Hong Kong translates into nanny. Breastfeeding isn’t involved.
When I think of godown, I think of the popular expat hangout in Hong Kong. In this 1972 tourist book, the Godown boasts that:
It is the first place in town which had European secretaries serving on tables and is really worth a visit.
I’m sure it was.
Rumor has it that the man in the bottom photo was the Godown’s owner, Bill Nash. Years later the Godown moved across the harbor to Hong Kong Island.
It’s a standard expat bar, and no longer a Chelsea-type restaurant with a concise, but first-class menu.
I used to go to the Godown in the late ’70s and mid-’80s, often as an afternoon stop between classes, where I could waste time and do some work. Also used to play backgammon with one of the waiters.
I waited tables in early 1993 at the GoDown. Being a shy lad back then I didn’t quite click with Carroll Alan, the manager, and was sacked soon after the busy Sevens period had finished. But the experience was interesting – the differences between the Gweilos in for their pre Jo Bananas meal and the HK Chinese businessmen who used to write on the pristine white table cloths.
When I look at the images of this month’s protests pre-1997 HK looks a world away now.
Thank you so much for this memory! I’m especially heartbroken and nostalgic now for Hong Kong. I was also not very extroverted in Hong Kong back in the 90s and probably wouldn’t have lasted a night working at the Godown. Your image of roudy expats and local Chinese businessmen is priceless!
That is definitely Bill Nash in that photo. Having often wondered what became of him, I am so sad to read of his passing. I knew Bill in the 1970s when serving in Hong Kong with the 1st Bn Irish Guards and subsequently with the 1st Bn 2nd King Edward VII’s Own Gurkha Rifles. My brother officers and I were frequent visitors to the Back Bar and we got to know him well. He was a great guy and was immensely popular with all of us. I have very fond memories of Hong Kong in those days and all the great guys and girls we got to know out there through the Godown.
I was stationed in Hong Kong 1970-72 with the RAF ( No 28 Squadron).One of my fondest memories is by being entertained by a rather large Maori gentleman whose signature song was “She take my money,and run to Venezuela”-in the Godown bistro , which was in a short alleyway off Chatham Road
Anyone remember this scene?
Thank you so much for your comment! This was before my time, but I love hearing about your memories of the Godown! That is so vivid!!!
See what happens when you google Godown!
I worked in the Godown in 1986 I think it was. Bill was a lovely man and gave me a job working tables and the front bar and in charge of the swinging bar doors as a doorman when all the expat spoilt brat kids used to attack in the summer holidays. There were wine barrels hanging from the ceiling in big netting down the back and it was a ritual for these guys to get smashed and climb over them. Carol (from Surrey) had barbed wire put through them. Unfortunately this did not deter! Lots of blood and tears.
The cut off ties hung from the lamp shade and there were some very interesting ones indeed.
I had just missed Madonna before I started. Bill showed me photos of him with her in the snow in China somewhere.
I had many friends there, one in particular was Portia but unfortunately we lost contact. Her surname started with a ‘G’ Goffey or something like that. I imagine she has married and goes by another name now. Anyone who knows anything, please pass it on.
The most amazing thing about the Godown was that it was as if it had frozen in time back in the 60’s. Oh! And not to forget James designer at Triumph International. He would enter most nights in his fur coat and demand a ‘screwdriver’ Heavy on the vodka, wave the orange juice over the top.
Then there was my first time a serving Cherries Jubalee. Just flick the flaming brandy on Carol said, it’s easy!
After the bar men put the table and customers out with the fire extinguishers, they got their meal free 😂
Normally we travelled from Kowloon to Lowu by train and then cleared into the PRC. Took another train to Kwangchow where we then flew by CAAC to Beijing.
During the four years in HK made the return journey from Beijiung to Lowu by rail. Had a little 35mm camera which with which I took memorable photos.
That must have been something with the Cultural Revolution going on. Did you know how bad it was when you went into China? I thought the trains had stopped going to Lowu at some point, but I guess by the early 70s the border was open again.
I arrived in HK in early January 1971.The worst excesses of the Cultural
Revolution had diminished by then.
I’m sorry to have to tell you all that Bill Nash died last Saturday afternoon [20 January 2018] in a London care home. He was still living in his flat in Chelsea when he celebrated his 90th birthday in October at a favourite local restaurant, but his health began to deteriorate and he was finally admitted to hospital just before Christmas.
Thank you so much for letting me know. This is very sad and I’m sure others will also feel this loss. I can inform some HK in the 60s FB groups. Thank you again.
Sorry to read about Bill Nash. When I was posted to HK during the early 1970’s spent more than a few evenings at the GoDown. Got to know Bill Nash who was an interesting man. He was a former Brit Army Officer and was a Mandarin speaker. As I and my colleagues used to frequently travel in and out of the PRC to Beijing used to practice my limited Mandarin with Bill. He was very interested in our travels into the PRC. So much so that I became convinced he was a Stringer for MI6.
Also recall Carol Allan.
That is so fascinating! When I first lived in Hong Kong in 1990, no one spoke Mandarin there but old KMT officers and antique dealers on Hollywood Road. I wish I’d known that about Bill Nash then. I think the Godown was still around in 1990. Your theory makes total sense. It would have been foolish of MI6 not to use him to get information. Who better to hear from people going in and out of Hong Kong.
Indeed. I was a Diplomat posted to the Canadian Commission Hong Kong from 1971 to 1975. During that time made nightynine trips in and out of Beijing. This was before air flights from HK to Beijing became a reality do every trip in and out was an adventure. Had the good fortune to be in Beijing when President Nixon visited.
I lived up on Bowen Road so the GoDown was my Local.
Very cool! My grandparents and uncle traveled to HK at lot during those years because my uncle worked for TWA and could fly for free. The first time I went to China was in 1988 and I flew through Canada on Canadian Pacific because no American carriers flew to Beijing or Shanghai. Did you take the train to Beijing mostly? Those were long rides!
Sorry to hear about Bill ‘s passing. David are you ex-Leo Burnett, HK? I was Mike Holbeche’s PA in early 70s and worked at the Godown too!
Hi Gina,
I’m sure you’re talking about the same David Perkins, and the same Mike Holbeche.
I remember you well, those were great days.
Maybe the whole thing is more serious these days, back then, alcohol wasn’t too badly regarded.
Did David ever reply?
Great days, Gina, I remember you fondly.
Barry Arnold
Hi David,
Can’t help but revisit HK in the 70s, great time to be alive.
Hope all is well with you, Lockhart Road has diminished greatly.
Best wishes,
Barry Arnold
I used to regularly visit the Godown from 82 to 87 on a Wednesday to enjoy the VJB. I lived in Singapore but we had an office in the Hopewell Centre do it was an easy choice. The drummer was Keith Vitty in those days and I bought an audio cassette of the band. The cassette is long gone but I wondered if there is any music I can get hold of from those days?
I remember the GoDown very well as I played the piano with the Jazz band that played on the Wednesday evenings. I was there 1972-1973. On one famous occasion I was playing away, just vamping and minding my own business when I noticed a few familiar looking guys walk in and past me into the main part of the club and bar area. It was only when the last one came in with a great big Souzaphone round his neck that I realised it was the Temperance Seven who were playing at the Mandarin Hotel over the Christmas holiday period. One of them came out with the immortal line – ” Do you mind if we join in for a jam session?” The rest is history – one of the best nights fun and crazy jazz I can ever remember. Great bunch of guys.
Mike Parker (recently retired Professor of Surgery – then a medical student on secondment in Hong Kong for a few months)
Wish I had kept a picture of the GoDown and Carol Alan who was the manageress at the time.
This is a wonderful story! That’s so great you played jazz piano while you were in medical school and could train in Hong Kong for a few months!
I worked at The Star newspaper during 1975 and spent many nights hanging out at the Godown on Kowloon side. Does anyone remember the manager, Helen Birmingham? I’m trying to get in touch with her.
Cheers,
Hendrix
Thanks so much for your comment? Are you on Facebook? There’s a Hong Kong in the 60s page and people on that might know how to contact Helen. I hope you can find her!
Hi Susan
I will check out the fb page….thanks for the advice!
The man in the photo is Bill Nash. I worked as a waitress in the Go Down from 1978-1983, when not attending college back in the U.S. There was a pop band six days a week, and a jazz band on Wednesday nights in the main bistro, and there was a little hole-in-the-wall called “The Back Bar,” with a jute box. For two to three decades, it was one of the top places to go for expats, tourists and celebrities. So much fun! Bill Nash was a really nice man, spoke fluent Mandarin, and had lived in HK since WWII.
It is definitely Bill Nash in the photo. The Go Down Bistro was on Kowloon side, but the bar and night club, which was the real place to go, was always on Hong Kong side.
That is Bill Nash, he worked for ICI and made a lot of money on the HK stock market in the late sixties which he started the Godown with, I remember being there from 1970 to 73 Carroll Alan was the manageress. I was the first one to loose my tie and had it pined to the light shade above the main long table, many more were to follow. The small back bar was where we played darts. There were 2 regular British girls there one was called Lottie the other I forget. One of the great characters who was a regular called Alan Tweedi. I last called in to see Alan and Carroll in 1983. The early days were fantastic we used to race up to the peak hospital and back across the ferry to Kowloon and back to the Godown again via the ferry in our Triumph TR4A sometimes just for a bottle of wine. Cliff Richard was the first celebrity to come to the bar after his first HK concert I think it was 1972. Happy days indeed.
Jeff
Hello. Actually, I wish to correct you a little: Bill Nash did not work at ICI. His business partner, Norman Marsh was the one who worked at ICI and made a lot of money on the stock market!!! I was travelling the workedand worked as manageress at the GoDown for six months in 1970. They really were wonderful times indeed!!.