THE HUTCHENCE BOYS, Michael and Rhett, were maniacal. It was understandable. We’d been talking about this trip for two months. Now finally they were ‘sitting’, if you could call it that, in a huge aircraft on their way to Hong Kong.
Christmas 1964 had just finished. Mother, the boys and I had somehow survived the woozy fallout of our combined cholera, typhoid and smallpox inoculations through the packing, celebrating and vacating-the-premises process. Now the tinsel and pine needles were history for another year, and Mother and I had to somehow keep the boys quiet for nine hours en route to Hong Kong and Kell.
I sat with four-year-old Michael, his colouring books and his Dr Seuss collection. It was a night flight and he soon fell asleep. Mother and amped-up two-year-old Rhett were sitting in the pair of seats right in front of us. In those days there were no movies on seat-backs and even though we’d kept Rhett up through his usual afternoon nap time he was a livewire. Mother and I switched seats and took turns looking after the two of them, sleeping when we could. Finally, after a 4.00 a.m. stopover in steamy Manila, we approached Hong Kong’s airport with bleary eyes.
Landing a jet at the notorious old Kai Tak airport was challenging for a pilot but unforgettable for the passengers. Rather than slow down, our plane seemed to accelerate as it hurtled lower and lower towards the island’s exotic-looking mountains swathed in mist. The whole thing looked like something out of the old King Kong or Godzilla movies. Michael sat next to the window. I had trouble keeping him in his seat, and the look on his face was magic. Eruptions of cloud kept ripping past, blinding us as we sank. Just before a crash seemed inevitable, the plane banked so hard you could see everyone leaning to one side as it swooped bravely into the belly of the harbour. We flew so low we could see strange rows of washing flapping between buildings while the sea streamed past close by. We hit the runway, the pilot braking like crazy as the ocean loomed dead ahead, before swinging hard left and idling to our disembarkation.
Heart-stopping to say the least.
Michael let out a ‘Whooooop!’ and turned to me.
‘Did you see, Tina, did you?’
Kell was waiting with his chauffeur and newly acquired white Mark X Jaguar which came with his position. It was one of those times when you wanted to sit next to the window and give the ‘royal wave’. The only way you could get from the airport on the Kowloon side (on mainland China) to Hong Kong Island with a vehicle was by car ferry. That would drop you in the red-light district of Wan Chai—then full of American sailors, most of whom would visit Wan Chai at least once during their measly five-day R&R from the horrors of the Vietnam War. We found out right away that even though Hong Kong literally means ‘fragrant harbour’, it is anything but.
Kell was already living the high life in a suite at the Hong Kong Hilton in Central District when we arrived. He—somewhat regally, it seemed to me—took a second suite, next door, for the boys and me. It was all terribly exciting as we invaded the luxurious adjoining rooms. Michael and Rhett immediately started jumping on the Hilton’s beds to trampoline-test them before we all collapsed, exhausted, under the covers.
The next day I took Michael for a walk. He was so thrilled to see this new city of ours. Although Hong Kong was a British colony then, the local people and customs were unique. There were very British-looking places cheek by jowl with local buildings being extended via bamboo scaffolding.
The noisy, crazy traffic was controlled by policemen, who stood on round concrete risers in the middle of the street. These contraptions had a flimsy railing and a cover on top to keep the sun from beating down too fiercely on the occupant as all eyes watched for his hand signals. With so many people walking the streets, he would stop all traffic—including rickshaws—and let the pedestrians walk wherever they wished at intervals. Michael’s golden Beatles mop-top was quite a novelty. He drew a crowd talking animatedly among themselves. I noticed he was quite unbothered by it all and just smiled at them.
On that first outing Michael and I took a rickshaw ride around the block and sampled some of the local ice-cream, which tasted like it had been in the freezer too long. With some urging we bought a bag of lychees in the street. We had never seen anything like the strange, succulent, red-shelled globes before. The vendor, eager to sell his daily haul from Guangdong province, opened one up and halved it for Michael and me to try. The rough outer shell disguised a fleshy, sweet-perfumed fruit that seemed to burst in our mouths. We took them back to the hotel to share with the family.
‘Never eat food from a street vendor, you might get sick!’ Kell warned, but I never worried about such things. And Michael was always eager to try any strange-looking or odd-smelling concoction from a vendor’s box.
Back at the Hilton, the boys and I took full advantage of room service while our parents threw themselves headlong into business-related parties and dinners. Occasionally I was invited along. My wardrobe changed from casual-Sydney-teenager to budding-uptown-socialite within weeks.
The 26-storey Hong Kong Hilton had been built in 1963. It was the only five-star hotel on the island at that time. The top floor was a restaurant called The Eagle’s Nest (very glamorous too). In the basement was a popular nightclub called The Den where an Italian band with a handsome, lascivious singer thrilled the tourists.
Realising that my job prospects were limited since I spoke neither Mandarin nor Cantonese, I jumped at an offer from the Hilton’s resident photographer to take some head-shots and full-length poses of me. Mother oversaw the session, of course. Most of the models at the time were Asian and there were few teenagers, so I did get quite a bit of runway work.
The boys found the Hilton lifts alluring. If left to their own devices they would ride them up and down ad infinitum. Mother and I often found ourselves in a panic, pushing elevator buttons frantically and subduing kidnap fantasies as we chased the little devils from floor to floor to floor. Fortunately, they would normally stay together, Rhett holding Michael’s hand.
The lads arrived at The Eagle’s Nest one night, perhaps planning to put a three-course meal on Kell’s tab. Luckily the staff knew the drill by then and they were suavely shown the lift and sent back ‘home’.
As you might imagine, it was a great relief to finally move into our own place.
It was a handsome, sweeping apartment halfway up Victoria Peak in an area known as the Mid-Levels. It had three bedrooms, a big living and dining area and a huge patio with a magnificent, unobstructed view of the harbour.
Along with the apartment came our first ‘amah’—home help. People in Hong Kong were, and still are, expected to create jobs by employing locals as household servants. A general amah is a housekeeper who also cooks, while a baby amah is a nanny. We eventually settled on Ah Chang, who preferred to work alone and told Kell so. Our beloved Ah Chang was a stout woman with the most gorgeous shiny black braid that reached down past her waist. She proved to be a ‘take charge’ person who had gone through hardships in her lifetime that most people would never have to face. When she arrived in the colony looking for work, she had had to leave her own children and husband back home in mainland China—perhaps hoping to bring them over later. The boys gave her a rough time until she got a handle on how the household ran, then she made her own rules. We Hutchences were all living a fast-paced lifestyle. Kell, Mother and I all had work that took us outside of the home and we socialised for fun and business reasons as well. Ah Chang would stay with the family and be highly valued for the rest of our time in Hong Kong.
Mother quickly got bored with mahjong and afternoon teas and lunches. One morning, after reading about an American film company arriving in town, she dressed, showed up at the production office and was hired for the make-up department. The first assistant director was a young Peter MacGregor-Scott who would weave in and out of our lives over the next 50 years. He went on to co-produce several mega-hits including The Fugitive (1993). While producing Batman Forever in 1995, he would get Michael to record the Iggy Pop song, ‘The Passenger’, for the soundtrack.
Life was very different for Michael now he was attending Glenealy Primary. He was picking up Cantonese phrases both at school and from Ah Chang. When he couldn’t get his point across, like the rest of us he resorted to mime. Perhaps these skills contributed to his remarkable body language as a stage performer later.
Nevertheless, this ‘dreamer’ who needed to get serious about his education (a familiar refrain) was for the most part academically lacking. Indeed, in subsequent years his younger brother, Rhett, would get much better results. Teachers would lament that Michael wasn’t paying attention. Luckily he scored high for his manners, his mingling, his eager class participation and willingness. He just couldn’t seem to get more than average grades. In fact, in some subjects he was close to failing.
What would he, could he, become? It wasn’t clear.
I don’t remember when he developed his lisp. Maybe it was always there; so much a part of him that I never thought about it.
In 1884 several bored Hong Kong wives had written to the acting Colonial Secretary and requested a club of their own. Thank heavens—the legendary Ladies Recreation Club was born and it was still flourishing in the 1960s. We often took Michael and Rhett there after school for a swim, and there was a family clubhouse and tennis courts as well as the pool. Michael certainly took to water. Fortunately Kell was a strong swimmer and taught the boys, along with professional help, because Mother never learned how to swim and neither did I. We wondered if Michael’s asthma, which he would struggle with to some degree for his whole life, would prevent him from doing his best. But it didn’t, and in fact Michael was pretty healthy as a child. Nothing affected his swimming or other sporting activities, not even the occasional bout of bronchitis, although a broken arm achieved by falling backwards while awkwardly trying to kiss a girl didn’t quite set right; it stopped him competing in swimming and diving tournaments at higher levels.
During those years in Hong Kong, Michael took on so many extracurricular activities when I look back. He studied music, violin and classical guitar for a time. There were lessons in kickboxing, judo, fencing, archery and chess. He built a million model aeroplanes and cars. That takes a steady hand and so much patience. I can’t tell you how many times I walked into his room and almost stepped on a delicate balsawood model. But none of these pursuits were expected to earn him a living one day.
Meanwhile, I worked out some go-go routines with three teenage girlfriends and we scored a gig as the resident go-go dancers on the Hong Kong version of the popular American music TV show, Shindig. Dubbed The Telstar Dancers by a local disc jockey, we were soon swamped with bookings. We were also modelling, and suddenly The Telstar Dancers were looked upon as the authorities in teen fashion.
When we rehearsed routines in the Hutchence living room, Michael would sit on the floor with a small record player, carefully moving the needle back to the beginning of the track as we’d declare, ‘From the beginning, one more time!’
Within a year or two Kell changed jobs again. This time he joined an American company, Mandarin Textiles, which, among other things, made couture for Lanvin. They also had the Dynasty label, which was sold in up-market hotels. We lost the chauffeur and the gorgeous apartment but stayed in Hong Kong.
Now, we were told, we were moving to a fantastic house owned by Time magazine that sat on a cliff face in Stanley, about 30 minutes south of town, on the coast.
From the front, the two-storey house looked like one you might see on any Main Street, USA—except for the bars on the windows, which were commonplace in Hong Kong. But as we walked into the spacious living area, with stairs on our right, we passed a literally enormous floor-to-ceiling library before arriving on a patio with a windswept view across the South China Sea. Kell let out a whistle and the boys copied him in their own, high-pitched way. Several small islands were dotted in the blue-green expanse. It was magnificent.
But then we looked down. Originating from the side of the house, wooden stairs hugged a sheer, spray-bathed cliff plunging down, down to a private beach with a natural rock pool and crashing waves.
‘Perfection!’ said Kell with satisfaction.
Mother was agog. She was clearly impressed by the view, as was I, yet as she looked from the perilous, weather-beaten stairs back to little Michael and Rhett, now wrestling and tumbling into a coffee table, you could see the whites of her eyes.
‘There are so many open steps down to that beach,’ she said quietly, with a noticeable quiver. ‘What if I get the children down there and I’ve forgotten something?’
The Stanley house came with its own amazing cook—although that term would be an insult for Ah Lee, our chef from Shanghai. I can still see him perched on a stool in the kitchen, carving carrots and parsnips into hollowed-out pagodas. These would arrive at the dinner table standing upright, lit from inside by small candles. Ah Lee was also a first-rate cocktail maker and drinks waiter. As he walked in balancing trays of martinis, margaritas and daiquiris, never forgetting who had ordered what, our parents’ friends were so impressed that several tried to lure him away.
That summer I met a boy who gave me a copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, published in 1892. I was caught up in the romanticism of the gesture and carried that book everywhere. It seemed most appropriate that I read it on the beach. Seven-year-old Michael became my audience when he wasn’t in the waves.
‘The atmosphere is not perfume’, I read, ‘… it has no sense of distillation … it is odourless, it is for my mouth forever … I am in love with it …’
Michael shrugged his shoulders, looking at me with curiosity. ‘What does it mean?’
‘It doesn’t matter, as long as the words made you feel good.’
It was a wild, beautiful summer but with the typhoon season came the realisation that ours was not the safest house. I experienced some of the most frightening weather I have ever witnessed—mostly because home was often too far away for me to get to before the warning went up to Level 8 (‘Danger: stay where you are’). And it was maybe even more frightening to be in that Stanley house with no protection except for the boarded-up windows shuddering and banging away. Michael often came to my room during the storms and we would sit under the covers with a torch reading stories until it passed over. After six months at the beach we moved back to a small home on Old Peak Road.
In March 1967, the Chinese Revolution began to have repercussions in Hong Kong. There were widespread strikes, rioting and arrests. A couple of months later communist sympathisers began planting bombs around the city. Students and strikers demonstrating against the British colonial rule were locked up by riot police. The clashes became so violent that a curfew was set. When socialising, we had to be sure to reach our destination by 7.00 p.m.—after which time, of course, you couldn’t go home. Honestly, it was a fabulous excuse for a teenager like me to stay out partying till morning. I admit it: I was more interested in having fun than in ‘boring’ politics. Mind you, as time went on, and certainly with Michael’s influence as well, all that would change.
By June, mainland China decided to show the British authorities in Honkers who was really boss. In solidarity with the leftist protestors, they shut off our water supply. Hong Kong completely relied on water from Beijing. Although it was calculated we’d have enough till October, people were talking about the troubles lasting for more than a year. The British requested extra supplies. No dice.
Now the situation was so desperate that the water supply needed to be rationed. The city was split into four sections. Each was allotted four hours of water, every fourth day. We stored supplies in huge tubs and used it sparingly. Playboy magazine joked that Hong Kong might be the only city where you could ask a girl to come home to shower on a first date and she would take you up on it.
I felt sorry for Ah Chang; she had to heat the water for the boys’ baths, shuffling back and forth between the bath and the kitchen with large, steaming hot pots. When Mother or I tried to help she saw it as a personal affront to her job security. I remember Michael and Rhett once had a shoving match in the bathroom where the water was stored and they knocked over a huge barrel. We heard quite a few obscenities screamed in Cantonese punctuated with the odd ‘Lett!’ and ‘Michael!’ as Ah Chang ran for towels while the precious water flowed down the hall into the living room. Rather than go thirsty, we checked back into the Hilton for three days. We recognised we were lucky that we could.
I speak of this lightly today, but, in fact, many people—students, protesters, innocent bystanders, police and several journalists speaking out against the violence—lost their lives.
In fact it was then, at just seven, that Michael felt the power of a political coming-of-age, a ‘first realisation of the physicality of politics—that it can go beyond a distant figure of England and the local pushover government and the Governor walking around in a silly hat’, as he told the South China Morning Post in a 1994 interview.
He told the newspaper that at the time of the unrest, our family home had been painted with slogans. Bombs were left in the school playground in what he described as ‘a paid campaign of subversion’. A friend of his was blown up. He saw a man running down Garden Road in the middle of quiet streets in the curfew, with a horde of rioters, ‘so-called Communist sympathisers’, after him, and his father run from the Hilton Hotel bar past security guards to help pull the fleeing man through the hotel’s doors to safety.
Michael would never forget the look of fear on that man’s face.
With bombings and bomb threats becoming common, even in our favourite hotel, people were stressed out over what was to come next. The police presence was formidable but, in turn, the sheer numbers of demonstrators were overwhelming. Hong Kong is a very busy city that survives on tourism and foreign trade, so I do think the enormity of the strikes and unrest—the gravity of it all—really resonated at home. But the international print media at the time didn’t seem to have a real sense of the size of the problem.
In his last year on earth, 1997, Michael would shoot a series of three documentary-style videos for MTV called Rough Guide to Hong Kong. The interviews he would do with residents then would show he personally empathised with the strong sense of the influence and power of the incoming Chinese rule they were feeling, when the handover from the British occurred on 1 July 1997.
Anyway, back in 1967 in Hong Kong, the danger and uncertainty continued right through the year. In December it was decided that Kell would stay on in Hong Kong for work while Mother, Michael, Rhett and I took a ship to the relative quiet of Sydney to ride out the political storm.