Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
bankruptcy, had gone into hiding. Exactly a year later, after a
warrant for his arrest had been issued following an application
in the High Court that he be judged insolvent, Lim Chin Tsong
died of influenza. He seemed to have lost the will to carry on.
Although LCT's eldest son took over the business, it was ob-
vious to Holmes that he was never going to succeed in recover-
ing his money, when even the great might of the Burmah Oil
Company had failed in getting theirs.
Over the next few months Holmes tried desperately to get a
job back in academic life, but the vacancies created by the war
years were now filled, and people were trying hard to return to
leading normal lives; there was a disinclination to change jobs.
In fact employment of any kind was hard to find, and hungry
people marched from Glasgow to London as the country headed
towards serious financial di~culties. First Holmes applied to
the Gateshead Education Authorities for a grant so that he could
continue his studies working from home, but despite his
impressive list of publications they turned him down because
he was not attached to any academic institution. To raise a few
pounds he occasionally gave piano recitals, an occupation he
greatly enjoyed, but which was unlikely to ever provide him with
much of an income. Eventually things got so desperate that they
were forced to ask Maggie's parents to re-instate her allowance,
which had lapsed when they went abroad and which her father,
perhaps reasonably feeling that his duties towards his daughter
had been discharged, was reluctant to resume. It became a
matter of some embarrassment between the two families and
while they haggled Maggie and Arthur, unable to finance a place
of their own, went to live with his parents, who could ill a¬ord
to maintain them in their small house in Whitley Bay.
Ultimately, in the summer of 1923, Holmes hatched a scheme
with a cousin of Maggie's, a Miss Graham, who was an expert
on furs. Together, but presumably with her money, they opened
a small shop in the centre of Newcastle, she as a 'Manufacturing
Furrier' and he as a 'Trader in Oriental Crafts', selling Indian
