Jack Jones, the US Journalist

Further down this blog I reported the discovery in a drawer in Seattle of a series of fine artistic sketches by Jack Jones of a Chinese drama show that was held near to the Friends Ambulance Unit's transport depot south of the river, in Chungking.

These pictures were intended to illustrate the long story in A TRUE FRIEND TO CHINA, at chapter 5, which is an unashamed tribute to the many and various qualities of its star, 'Mrs CMS', the lovely wife of one of Jack's drivers with whom he was besotted.

This article was written for and first published at length in the FAU's newsletter in 1948 and circulated to a small audience of FAU workers throughout China. A shorter version was then in August 1949 published in HOLIDAY, the Philadelphia based magazine of AAA, the American motoring organisation. A further version was published in Jack's book, DAUGHTERS OF AN ANCIENT RACE in Hong Kong in 1974 and finally at length by me in my own book in 2015. Not a bad run at all and the story is well worth its repeated airing!

However, in putting the book together I was desperately short of illustrations for this piece and sadly Jack's sketches only surfaced in Seattle some months after publication. But now another Holy Grail has just emerged. After scouring all possible places in the US of A where there might be old magazines, I have finally captured and have here on my desk a copy of that precious issue of HOLIDAY with Jack's article in it.

At page 167 of my book Jack can be found grudgingly applauding HOLIDAY for its editing of his work and the production of own illustrations. I wondered how they managed to do these pictures but on seeing the pages now understand that Jack sent his own sketches to the publisher and its artist then produced the final definitive versions.

What now follows are pictures of Mrs CMS on a monocycle and of a man doing a trick with a normal bike, Jack's draft sketch being followed by the one that actually appeared in the magazine.

A struggling writer cannot of course tell the magazine's publisher how to illustrate his magazine, but I know whose drawings I prefer. Which ones do you like better... Jack's version that comes first or the ones based on them that were in fact published?

Having now got all these great images and having nearly sold out the book in both UK and the US, I desperately want to do a reprint with this chapter now lavishly illustrated. I'll be sad if the book goes out of print and becomes a rare collectors' item. I can probably organise a reprint in the UK but how am I to do it in the US? I need a collaborator there who will get printing quotes and organise storage and distribution. It ain't easy but I'd so like the book to find a new life and be more widely read.

Please, who can help?

CHP-160-Jack Jones and the FAU China Convoy 1945-1951

Click on this link to hear a podcast by Laslo Montgomery of the 'China History Podcast' telling the story of A TRUE FRIEND TO CHINA and of the FAU China Convoy, as is explained in my following blog post.

CHP-160-Jack Jones and the FAU China Convoy 1945-1951

THE FAU - SEVENTY YEARS ON

Exactly seventy years ago today Jack Jones first landed in Kunming, to work with the Friends Ambulance Unit distributing medical aid throughout vast areas of China.

And today Laszlo Montgomery has uploaded a story about Jack and the FAU to his CHINA HISTORY PODCAST which google will swiftly find for you, thus telling the world this important story that time has all but forgotten.

Nearly 400 men and women from the UK, the USA, Canada and New Zealand volunteered several years of their lives to live and work in China at a difficult time, an example of humanitarian service that wasn't insignificant and is well worth remembering.

My new book can be bought in the USA from www.quakerbooks.org,in Hong Kong from St John's Cathedral, in China from Earnshaw Books and from me by mail on enquiry to arhicks56@hotmail.com.

It is a great adventure story with many sub-plots and twists and I hope you will enjoy it and learn something from it.

SAD NEWS OF FLEDA JONES

Fleda Jones, the young African American in this photo is not longer of this world. She has recently died in her mid-nineties.

The picture looks relatively recent but in fact it was taken in 1949 outside the North Point Relief Camp in Hong Kong and is of Friends Ambulance Unit workers waiting to fly into Chungking. The story is told in my book, A TRUE FRIEND TO CHINA, in which Fleda as the lab technician in Jack Jones' peoples' clinic played an important role.

What courage it must have taken for a young woman to travel alone to Hong Kong and to plunge into the vast unknown of China, facing civil war and the communist takeover, risking her life in harsh conditions in the hope of helping people and saving lives. She made an exceptional contribution but as the book will tell you her presence there led to dramatic and far-reaching consequences. This blog will not spoil the story which reads better than fiction and which strangely was later translated into fiction. Novelists always write from experience and Jack Jones as author drew on this tumultuous time in Chungking in writing his best-selling novel, A WOMAN OF BANGKOK.

About three years ago I tried tracing Fleda Jones in her home country, the USA. All I had was an address for her in the sixties. Miraculously she was still there and I managed to get her phone number. We had a long and warm chat on the phone and this personal contact meant a lot to me though I leaned little from her. She was 'busy busy' and still learning Chinese, ever optimistic in her tenth decade.

Subsequent attempts at contact failed so I sent in the sleuths. A good friend was in New York and he most generously went out of his way to visit her apartment block. but the news was not good. It seems that not so long after I had spoken to her she was taken ill and hospitalised. When she died a memorial service was held but there were no relatives which seems sad. After a life-time of medical service she had friends but they knew little about her except that she was strong and resilient, a 'tough broad'.

So finally a line is drawn under one more of Jack's co-workers in Chungking. Remarkably though, Dorothy Reuman (on left of picture) is still in close contact with me and living in West Hartford, Connecticut, while Howell Jones, standing at the back has just sent me a Facebook friends request from his home in Newfoundland.

What remarkable survivors these Friends Ambulance Unit China Convoy people were. They didn't need my book to make them somehow immortal.

"How He Brought the Good News from Hicks to Gwent"**

If I were to say that A TRUE FRIEND TO CHINA is a best-seller the lie detectors would ping loudly. In the US alone, quite a small country, sixty five copies have already sold off www.quakerbooks.org, which isn't bad. However, virtually all sales are to FAU families, specialist sinophiles and personal friends that I embarrass into buying one from me. Perhaps not surprisingly though, almost none go to casual readers I don't know.

But there is one striking exception, a sale to a guy I know as 'notstevejones'. This was the moniker by which he emailed me from Thailand, telling me that he had read the 'Jack Reynolds' novel of 1956, A WOMAN OF BANGKOK, and that he was smitten by it. He just couldn't wait to read my new book and to learn more about his namelysakely pseudonymous Jack Jones who had written a book so long ago that still fizzed with life and relevance.

He was shortly returning from Bangkok to his usual domicile in South Wales and, unable to await the delay in sending the book by mail, could he please drive up from there to meet me somewhere in Hampshire to get a copy more urgently. Thus at the earliest possible moment he leaped on his classic Triumph motorcycle and roared east for many hours. I leaped into my equally (almost as) fast MG and pounded at least six miles west where we breathlessly met at a rainy bikers cafe.

Definitely notstevejones and mysterious, he remained Stig-like in leathers and helmet. I thrust the book into his hands, (not one of the rare unsigned editions), and the cameras flashed. He expressed himself to be truly grateful and I felt genuinely humbled that someone should value my efforts so highly.

You may think this is all a spoof but it isn't. Five years researching a book like this is a lonely business. When published the earth doesn't move and there is a resounding silence. However, just occasionally, like last weekend, somebody really goes out of their way to tell me how much they value what I have done and I appreciate this more that I can possibly say.

Thanks notsteve! It was a real pleasure meeting you and may there be many more like you.

** 'How they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix' is a poem by Robert Browning about a crazy journey that was shoved down my throat at school. It seemed vaguely appropriate for the title above.

VJ Day and Jack Jones

The war in the Far East was won in 1945 by China in alliance with the western nations. Having been invaded by the Japanese in 1937, an invasion that began WWII, China suffered about 30 million casualties. The suffering caused was truly horrific and China was in a state of great distress, even tough the victor.

On 2nd September 1945 the Japanese signed the formal surrender on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. On 3rd September Jack Jones sailed from Liverpool for China by way of India and a rough flight by DC3 over the Himalayas into Kunming in Yunnan province. Thus began his own personal saga, a story of a young man in turmoil finding himself in life, as is told through his own words in my new book, A TRUE FRIEND TO CHINA.

The war had thus been won and Jack and the Friends Ambulance Unit were there to win the peace. History shows that this was to be a long run thing and far, far more difficult, though today China is stable and once more an ally, open to trade and a fundamental part of the international community. Jack would be very proud and thankful for the achievements of a China that he so loved.

BOOKS... USA www.quakerbooks.com
UK and the rest of the world, by mail from arhicks56@hotmail.com.

An Illustration Too Late

My new book, "Jack Jones - A TRUE FRIEND TO CHINA" is available in north America from www.quakerbooks.org, in Hong Kong from the St John's Cathedral Bookstore, in China from Earnshaw Books, in London from the Friends Centre in the Euston Road and otherwise can be mailed to you worldwide on enquiry to me at arhicks56@hotmail.com.

Researching the book has been an unending saga and even after its recent publication more finds come pouring in. Below is a new discovery, a drawing by Jack Jones that was intended to illustrate the long article in Chapter 5 which describes a performance put on by Jack's driver and amateur impresario, Chang Min Sang. One of the acts in the show was 'Mrs CMS' herself, who Jack admired most openly, disporting herself on a unicycle.

Now I'll just have to reprint the book to include these delightful 'new' pictures!

More of them appear in the blog post below.