An experienced baby

There was gunfire in the distance when a messenger hurried in and whispered to the doctor. He looked at me and then at the nurse,

‘She’s OK for now – I’ll be back later.’

With that assurance he threw off his white coat and rushed out.

‘Right, well I’ll just get on with producing this baby then,’ I thought as another wave of contractions arrived.

Now here was that same baby, proudly holding his own offspring in his arms and explaining that the family would be going to France by ferry and train for a week’s holiday but that all should be fine. Of course everything would be OK, this dad had built - in experience.

I had come into Kampala for a check-up and as I was overdue the doctor had said that he would start things going. I was only too pleased as we were leaving the country in less than three weeks. This was Uganda 36 years ago. Idi Amin had been in power for just over a year. Things were becoming increasingly difficult and unpleasant and the British Government was pulling out contract teachers like us.

The doctor did come back just in time to deliver the baby, having chased and retrieved his car from thieves outside Mengo Mission Hospital. After the delivery my husband, Richard, slept on the floor as it was not safe to drive the nine miles home at night, to the school where we lived.

Ten days later Timothy was christened in the school chapel attended by a congregation of several good friends and two hundred African schoolgirls. Ten days after that saw us, two novice but optimistic parents, standing on Kampala station platform with two suitcases, and a ‘Moses basket’ containing Tim, asleep on top of piles of terry towelling nappies, a bottle of Milton and a copy of ‘Doctor Spock’.

Our baggage and the dog had gone back to UK by air, but since I had naively asserted that ‘a baby was not going to make any difference!’ we planned to take a sea voyage home at the end of our final contract. However, we had to get down to Cape Town to take up our berth, since Suez was closed, and ships no longer called in at Mombassa, Kenya. We settled ourselves into the compartment of a well-used and rather old steam train, after waving a sad farewell to our friends and a wonderful four years working in East Africa.

The train puffed slowly across miles of bush out of Uganda and into Kenya. I fed the baby who was blissfully unaware of the major changes taking place in his life, dozed and looked out rather wistfully, on a landscape whose dusty horizons stretched forever. Then we were rattling carefully down into the Rift Valley, across the bottom and up the other side. The train was going so slowly that trackside traders were able to offer their wares of bananas and stodgy bread rolls to us through the windows, whilst running alongside.

We came to a troubled halt at a station in the Highlands and in the midst of all the hustle, bustle and confusion we suddenly heard friends from Nairobi calling, ’Get out now it’ll be much quicker by car.’ So we hastily gathered nappies, shoes and blankets and threw them into a bag, passed the cases, basket and baby out to willing hands and disembarked leaving the train to sort out its problems and rumble its way slowly on the last part of its journey.

After just over an hour I was indeed very grateful to get to the hotel, feed Tim yet again and then hand over all responsibility for anything to Richard and Doctor Spock for a few hours. I wasn’t feeling particularly good and was pretty sure that the infection in my left breast had not been entirely beaten by the massive dose of antibiotic I had received just before we left.

We were up early the next morning and I smiled long enough to say goodbye at the airport as we prepared to board a flight to Malawi. We were especially keen to see our friends who were working for Scripture Union in Blantyre. Besides which we wanted to show off our brand new son exactly three weeks and two days old.

I am just a little hazy over the next twenty-four hours but I do remember us landing, being met by our friends and being taken straight to the hospital. I was in theatre within hours having a breast abscess removed. I’m not sure what happened to Tim but he was there when I came round in the hospital bed, and needless to say he was demanding food.

Some time during the afternoon I fed Tim again and was struggling to settle him when a kindly Asian lady came into the ward. She watched my pathetic inexperienced efforts briefly then said, ‘Give him to me.’ I gratefully handed him over and the last I saw was my tiny son disappearing into the folds of yards of white sari and being carried out through the door. Several hours later I woke to find the same lady wreathed in smiles and returning my baby. I have no idea who the lovely lady was or where she took Tim but I have never forgotten her and her instant empathy and understanding.

The rest of the week was spent with our friends, all four of us taking turns with baby minding since I was now both bottle and breast feeding. We went off on trips to see something of the scenery of Zomba Plateau and the Shire valley, and our friends’ new house.

But it was time to move south again. Another flight and this time our destination was Johannesburg. Contacts of friends met us and after a quick check-up with a doctor and a new supply of antibiotics the whole family was being taken on a trip through the terrible slums of Soweto. I remembered seeing from the plane, the blue of numerous garden swimming pools, and now we were faced with the other side of life in that city. There had been nothing on this scale in either Kampala or Nairobi in those days.

After this brief glimpse of the powerful contrasts that were apartheid South Africa we were in another station. This time we were taking the famous Blue train across the Karoo and the rich farm lands of Cape Province from Johannesburg to Cape Town in 24 hours. Our sleeper compartment had two bunks, a drop-down table and tiny triangular basin. This was the smallest ‘bath’ in which our now fairly well travelled son had so far been washed. It was also the only receptacle in which I could sterilise nappies and rinse the same. I had no access to disposable nappies so it was terry towelling and liners topped by awful stiff, plastic pants. It was no wonder that I had to apply copious amounts of cream to stave off nappy rash.

It was a wonderful journey with fascinating countryside to look at and nothing to worry about except whether Tim was getting enough with a mixture of bottle and breast and how to get the nappies dry. The cabin attendant provided boiling water for the bottle-feeds, and we ate in the dining car. The only blemish was that I abandoned caution and plumped for an appetising salad with my evening meal and subsequently paid for it with food poisoning that night.

So it was that we finally reached Cape Town. We were met by yet more friends of friends and they took us to a basic B&B since we had decided to spend our money on a hire car rather than on more up-market accommodation. Tim was now 5 weeks old and seemed to be thriving despite a rather sore posterior and we determined to see as much as possible of this famed part of the world. We drove down to Cape Point where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet, along the beautiful coast under the ‘Twelve Apostles’ and took in the view of Cape Town from the Lion’s Head, at night.

We went to a drive-in cinema and of course we took Tim up the magnificent Table Mountain in the cable car. There was some consternation in the ‘car’ as I had to feed him on the way up. This was a perfectly natural thing for even a European to do in Uganda but a shock for whites to witness in South Africa. It hadn’t occurred to me that there might be a problem - he was hungry and I had the food.

I also got into trouble in the boarding house when I went down to the kitchen to get some water and stood chatting with the African cook whilst we were waiting for the kettle to boil. The white landlady was furious that I should be chatting familiarly with an African and she gave us both a ticking off. I seemed to manage to upset the Afrikaner matrons too, as every time we went out into the street or into a shop in town carrying the baby in our arms, one of these matrons would mutter, ’Shame, shame!’ as they passed by. Apparently, I later discovered, it was quite unacceptable, in those days, for any white baby to be taken out and about in public before the age of at least 6 months!

Finally the day of embarkation arrived. Having passed muster at yet another strange doctor’s surgery, we gathered our baby, our baggage and ourselves and prepared to board one of the last of the Royal Mail ships – the ‘Windsor Castle’. After just under a fortnight’s sailing and a brief stop in the Canaries we would be back in the UK with an already experienced baby.

Looking at my son I decided that his travelling to France with his wife and baby would be fine – besides which my nine-month-old grandson had some catching up to do.