Ian Gill&rsquo;s first visit to Hong Kong in 1975 took an unexpected turn when he encountered his Chinese mother Billie&rsquo;s friends, colleagues and fellow ex-prisoners of war, lifting the veil on a tumultuous past in Hong Kong and Shanghai.He moved to Asia and unraveled her intriguing journey: from her controversial adoption by an English postmaster in Changsha to popular radio broadcaster in wartime Shanghai, from tragedy and a doomed romance in a Japanese prison camp to being decorated by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the United Nations. He discovers a great-grandmother in a determined English farm girl who ends up owning a well-known hotel on the China coast in the 1870s &ndash; and he finally meets his father for the first time on a Canadian island in 1985.Searching for Billie is a compelling true saga of how determined and resourceful people overcame huge obstacles &ndash; including poverty, prejudice, war and captivity &ndash; on their path through setbacks and successes. It tells China&rsquo;s fascinating, complex history in a clear and coherent manner. As the Eurasian author unravels his mother&rsquo;s life story, he discovers Chinese and English ancestors he previously knew nothing about.The backdrop for this fascinating family story is China&rsquo;s turbulent century from the Anglo-Chinese wars of the 1840s to the advent of communism.The book also includes Thai content as Gill and his mother lived in Bangkok from 1949 to 1953 when she worked for the United Nations at ESCAP.Gill was was a journalist for 20 years, starting in the UK and moving to New Zealand, Fiji, Australia and Hong Kong, where he worked for Asiaweek and Insight from 1978 to 1980, and Singapore, where he was a staff reporter for the Asian Wall Street Journal from 1980 to 1982. He was with the Asian Development Bank in Manila for over 20 years, and reverted to journalism and writing books upon retirement.&nbsp;Copies will be available.

Searching for Billie by Ian Gill

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