Boyfriend brings home bomb victim’s ashes

Press, 17 December 1988, Page 6

Boyfriend brings home bomb victim’s ashes

PA Auckland Mr Murray Chapman, the boyfriend of a bomb victim, Miss Colleena Wong, flew home with his girlfriend’s ashes and found a postcard from her in his letterbox.

He had intended to announce his engagement to Miss Wong the day she was due to come home — today — but she died after a home-made bomb exploded near her at the Great Wall of China. Miss Wong and her sister, Miss Patra Wells, were on a tour and were the first off the bus at the wall. A Chinese couple died in what was thought to have been a lovers’ suicide pact. Miss Wong, aged 34, had surgery but never regained consciousness. “At first, I wished them in hell. There are lots of other ways they could have killed themselves without taking other people with them,” Mr Chapman, aged 38, said.

He rushed to Peking to be at his girlfriend’s bedside but touched her shoulder only once. He was not allowed to sit with her because of the risk of infection. “She is with me still — I talk to her most nights,” he said. Miss Wong was a keen tramper and “fiddled with the classical guitar.” “She did not suffer fools gladly. She did not warm to people straight away. They had to get to know her. But people warmed to her,” he said. “I am just thankful that she would not have known what hit her. She was taking pictures, having a good time.” Friends had been wonderful, he said. He received letters from people he had not seen

for years and a high school friend of Colleena also wrote. More than 250 people attended Miss Wong’s memorial service. She was cremated in Peking after a service given by the surgeon who attended her, Dr Hugh Carpenter. The family had a private burial last week. Mr Chapman said he hoped to go back to China and wanted to keep in contact with people from the New Zealand Embassy there and the interpreters who gave their time freely. Chinese people offered to take him to the wall but he could not face it. “It has been hard, I have had some real bad days. She was my mate, my best friend.”