Letter from Michael Harries, 18 West End, Whitney, Oxon

Note: This letter written by a friend from Baker's China years to Mrs Baker sheds some light on the conditions during the period and on Baker's work in China with lepers.

Dear Kuni,

I am old now, as we all are, and war years were so involved with so many things, and what we did - its not easy to remember – so much has happened ever since. However I do have two memories that may be of interest as far as the FAU and China are concerned.

I was an early one to arrive in China. I drove up the Burma Road and until February 1942, was in Kweiyang, working in the medical stores. Later in the year I was posted to Paosham with the surgical team we had there. I was the anesthetist. We were close to Mekong river which was as far as the Japanese had reached, and we dealt with the refugees and with much going and coming. Although I had known Laurie at home, I do not think I had seen him yet in China.

After a year, I was moved to Kunming dealing with the support of other medical teams .1 often went to Kunming by train, often sitting on the roof. Kutsing was the unit head quarters. Laurie was in charge of the hostel. This was quite large and the head quarters for personnel, and 4 course all those involved with the ever increasing trucking operations and repair shops. It was an ever-changing situation for the hostel. The desk operations, as far as the head quarters and its management was concerned, the truck drivers, who came and went, and demanded good food and rest after weeks of driving, visitors and transit members, involved with the head quarters maters. All this put a vast responsibility on Laurie. So much organization, so much demand from senior staff, down to weary truck drivers who wanted the dirty washing done by the same evening! Also the social side had its demands, no newspapers, limited books, no cinema, few members of the opposite sex, and letters from home few and far between, and those that did arrive may have taken a month or six weeks to come .All this for obvious reasons, could lead to boredom, sometimes arguments and often different opinions.

I do not say that such pressures lead to troubles, on the whole, it was a happy crowd, but care was needed to keep all happy. So much fell on Laurie, and he worked night and day to keep constant demands met. He did a terrific job, and few realised it .We had so much to thank him for.

My other comments, are that few, if any, realized until afterwards, the work he did with the lepers at Salachi, Leper Colony. Of course, his care for those who suffered from this disease must have been of the greatest difficulty in every way. A major problem was the hatred and fear of the neighboring population. This at times resulted in physical violence and efforts to close the home. It did not take Laurie long to realise that those problems were based on ignorance. That terrible illness was not under-stood in any way, or why such people were allowed to exist. Laurie undertook to approach the nearby villages and explain all about the plight of these people and their illness. This was of course not easy, infact; at first he was treated with such disdain and contempt, if not anger, and threats of violence. But by, one supposes, huge efforts Laurie won out. Infact in due course, the people not only visited the home, talked to the patients and even helped them. He over came a situation that seemed to have been there forever the fear and the hatred and the ignorance of possibly the most terrible of diseases-leprosy.

Many missions had leprosy homes, and when the population objected, as has been the case at Salachi, the missionaries had moved their establishments away to lonely places. When Laurie's efforts were successful, many undertook similar efforts and moved the patients back to social surroundings

Laurie's life has with your support been beyond praise

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