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Published by SCMP Books
ISBN: 978-962-17-9400-0
Hardback, 296 pages
Size: 24 x 17 x 2.3 cm
Published: December 2007

Price: HK$200 / US$25.95

A newspaper report is the first draft of history. Over the past four decades, reporter Kevin Sinclair has covered the unfolding story of Hong Kong and China. Many of those events are now in the history books. What were front page stories — like the Cultural Revolution, the unveiling of organised corruption in Hong Kong, the foundation of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, the building of the Mass Transit Railway, the changeover from British colony to a Chinese Special Administrative Region, typhoons, landslides, tidal waves of refugees, the ever-changing Hong Kong skyline, the fight to provide housing, the evolving education system — are all now history.

This book covers a vibrant, exuberant society that in the 1960s lived on the edge, emerging from poverty and the unknown terror of what was happening across the Shenzhen River. It reflects the uncertainty, the joy and the lurching path towards progress and prosperity. It tells the story of the men and women who built the New Hong Kong, laying a fresh framework on the strong foundations left by 156 years of British rule, and of the partnership between colonial rulers and a largely willing population happy to exist in peace.

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MEDIA ATTENTION

"Sinclair eventually became the doyen of Hong Kong's press corps and a prolific author, editor and columnist. His memoir is an anecdote-rich chronicle of his life and career, a newsman's perspective on major events in recent Chinese history — from the Cultural Revolution to the launch of China's economic transformation — and an encomium to his adopted home, Hong Kong. Sinclair and tales of drinking go together like Scotch and a beer chaser, and passages of Tell Me a Story also document his struggles with alcohol, which lent poetry to his reputation yet almost certainly contributed to the old lion's final vanquishment by cancer last month at the age of 64. Viewing him through posterity's filter, it is clear that he wasn't simply a local firebrand and celebrity. He was the last of a breed of reckless, old-style, table-thumping China Coast journalists." – Liam Fitzpatrick, TIME

"Sinclair was Hong Kong's best-known and arguably most respected English-language journalist. He held jobs at the riotous (and now-defunct) tabloid, The Star, in the late 1960s before moving on to the lower-octane Hong Kong Standard and, finally, to the relatively sedate South China Morning Post over his long and illustrious career. Known locally as the "mad gweilo [foreign devil] with a hole in his throat" after a 1979 laryngectomy left him literally voiceless, Sinclair built a reputation for battling inefficiency, falsehood and corruption in the city until the Big C ultimately took his life. He was honored as a Member of the Order of the British Empire for his work in 1983 and also voted Hong Kong's Person of the Year in the year of his death. He represented the larger-than-life, swashbuckling journalist class of yesteryear, and his memoir and passing are sure to stir up nostalgia for the old days of inebriate gatherings of close-knit China scribes at the Foreign Correspondents' Club and in the girlie bars of Wan Chai. Indeed, Sinclair was the leader of the pack. There will never be another like him." – Kent Ewing, Asia Times

"Sinclair once recalled: "As I was being wheeled into the operating theater, I was determined to pull through - especially as the buggers on the paper were running a book and taking bets on whether I'd survive, with odds-on against." Even after his operation, Sinclair was never lost for words, nor did he mince them. A retired GIS officer recalled talking to Sinclair after the throat operation which left him unable to speak. "Kevin wrote down his questions, and I wrote down the answers. He exploded, writing in his notebook, `I'm not *!&@^+$ deaf!"' – Steve Shellum, The Standard