At Least We Lived: The Unlikely Adventures of an English Couple in World War II China; In Time of War

Lt. Cmdr. Henry Collingwood-Selby was recuperating in hospital on Christmas Day 1941; he noted in his diary entry for the day: "5:45 Heard news of surrender."

Collingwood-Selby's diary entries for the fateful year of 1941 are included in the recent In Time of War, a collection of his papers from the period, transcribed and edited by his son Richard. The publication of this volume coincides with Emma Oxford's At Least We Lived: The Unlikely Adventures of an English Couple in World War II China, the story of her parents and similarly based on personal papers. Her father, Max Oxford, was one of the small party who escaped from Hong Kong on that fateful Christmas day along with Chinese Admiral Chan Chak.