Empire Made Me

This is the story of Richard Maurice Tinkler an ordinary Englishman who after fighting for his country in World war one found that his country has no job for him. He saw an ad of a policeman in Shanghai- Applicant must be unmarried, with good teeth, about 20 to 25 years of age. Salary is Taels 85 per month equivalent to 13 pounds per month. He was given free passage to Shanghai. Sailed from Glasgow and arrived in 1919 via Port Said, Penang, Singapore and Hong Kong. ( See p 31-33 Bickers ) Coming from poverty-stricken England Tinkler was taken in by the prosperity he saw in Shanghai. Thus Tinkler became a man made by the British Empire and ended up An Englishman adrift in Shanghai. Bickers has written a good history of Shanghai pre-World war two. He has used the life of a nondescript Englishman to illustrate well the social and political pre-war Shanghai.

This is brilliant theatre of the absurd. It captures the pathos of the imperial everyman Maurice Tinkler toiling away for a small pay at the distant edge of empire - and his decline which mirrors and echoes the decline of the British Empire in the far east in the 1930's - faced by the surge of Asian nationalisms. Maurice Tinkler is falling apart, emotionaly, mentaly, spiritualy and physicaly - and so is the Brittish Empire which he loves and to which he has devoted his life. He died an imperial martyr - it was the only way he wished to go.