In 1951, Jimmy McGregor of the Royal Air Force was on his way from Singapore to the battlefields of the Korean War.
He never made it. For reasons he still doesn't know, McGregor was "dumped off" in Hong Kong. Forty-six years later, he's still here, one of the great, colorful fixtures of colonial rule.During his various tenures as civil servant, head of the local chamber of commerce, elected legislative councilor and ultimately a member of the last executive council (Exco) to advise a British governor, McGregor has seen Hong Kong rise from colonial backwater to one of the world's most dynamic economic hot spots.
He thinks it's finally time to go.
Shortly after sovereignty over Hong Kong is handed back to China at midnight June 30, McGregor and his wife will pack their bags and head to Canada.
"I'm 73. I've been working in the system for the last 46 years. There is no place for me in what comes next under China," McGregor explained. "Better to step down now, bow out and shut up."
Yet there's no bitterness, only sadness, at the end of Britain's day in the sun. "Hong Kong is part of China. It was taken by force, and it is only right and proper to give it back," he said.
What disturbs him is the prospect of diminished democracy under Chinese rule.
"I simply don't think China will permit a political system to develop that will challenge the very criteria on which the Chinese Communist Party is based," McGregor said. "Already, China sees democracy in Hong Kong as destructive and unhelpful. It's a very sad situation, very sad."
An interview with McGregor provides a captivating roller-coaster ride of emotion, anecdote and ardent discourse on Hong Kong politics, befitting someone whose long career has taken him through many of the most dramatic events in the colony's turbulent postwar history.
When McGregeor first arrived in 1951, the mass influx of refugees fleeing China's new Communist government had just started to engulf Hong Kong.
"There were people on all the hillsides, all the rooftops, down all the alleyways. There was no sewage (system), and the administration had no money or people to cope."
In 1967, followers of China's hysteria-tinged Cultural Revolution brought mass protests, riots and mayhem to the streets. Terrorist bombs exploded. Scores of politically motivated murders were committed during a few short months as Hong Kong teetered on the edge of a Communist takeover.
As head of the government's counter-propaganda committee, McGregor was in the front of the struggle. During the height of the street battles, he packed a pistol and was given a bodyguard.
At one point McGregor successfully sued a leftist newspaper for calling him a corrupt official. "They picked the wrong guy. I had fought all my working days against corruption, and no one was going to attack my record."
During the 1970s, McGregor spearheaded a concerted drive against Hong Kong's notoriously sleazy customs and police departments, which were found to be riddled with officers on the take.
The efforts of McGregor and others led to the establishment of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, still considered Hong Kong's most effective anti-corruption bulwark.
He left the civil service in the mid-1970s to serve as full-time director of the Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce, a job he held for 13 years. Then he plunged into politics, winning election to Hong Kong's legislative council.
Rarely out of the headlines, McGregor constantly courted controversy with his outspoken views on the need for more democracy in Hong Kong. He was one of few businessmen to endorse Gov. Christopher Patten's contentious electoral reforms.
McGregor, who is fluent in Cantonese, has been quieter since his appointment in 1995 to Patten's eight-member executive council, but only because of its oath of secrecy. His views haven't changed.
"You know, I'm the last non-Chinese member of Exco. I feel a bit like the last of the Mohicans. You ask why I've often described myself as a colonial dinosaur. Well, that's what I am."
"When I got to Hong Kong, I met so many people, enjoyed life to such an extent, I wanted to stay forever. My wife hated the place, couldn't stand it. But I was determined to make a go of it here, and that smashed my first marriage."
McGregor's second wife is ethnic Chinese. "She says Hong Kong should have been returned to China long ago, though she does recognize the great work done by the British administration over the years."
It won't be easy for McGregor to say goodbye.
"I will be leaving behind a territory and an administration I've been involved with at all levels for the last 46 years."
McGregor said he'll stay for "the bonfires and the drums" of the handover, then leave. After June 30, he promises to say not another word about Hong Kong's political direction.
"The day I step down and step clear, which is the day after one flag goes down and another goes up, I don't intend to say anything more," he insists. "Leave the people responsible to get on with the work. It's unhelpful for those on the sidelines, no longer part of anything, to offer criticism."