Laurence Denham, a Director of Patons and Bladwins, Launceston, spent may years with the firm in Shanghai, China (1933-194?), before coming to Launceston in the 1950s. The diaries record his experiences on the journey to China in 1933 and in the British community in Shanghai in that year, as well as during the Japanese occupation in World War Two, for the years 1944-45.