I now have two more notes from my parents, sent in the immediate aftermath of the arrival of Harcourt’s fleet on August 30th, 1945. (For other cards and telegrams, see https://jonmarkgreville2.wordpress.com/2012/08/05/from-the-dark-worlds-fire-thomass-cards-from-stanley-camp/)
My father left Stanley on about September 2nd to try to get bread production started. This note was probably sent by air mail on September 3rd and would have been the first definite proof that his family had that Thomas and his new wife had survived. My aunt told me that they knew it was genuine because he used the family nickname ‘Ooke’:
The second is a longer note sent the next day:
For all the desire to get home quickly, it wasn’t until August 1946 that they left Hong Kong. And not until February 1951 that they came to the UK for good, although even then they considered returning to Hong Kong for some time after that.
The Dark World's Fire: Hong Kong in World War Two 