Childhood Traumas

We were not spared from childhood traumas. Whilst in the rented house, Andrew tripped and split his lip open on the door jamb. The doctor arrived and stitched it up whilst I held the little mite on my knee - no anaesthetic!

He would not eat or drink, but Nanny, my mother and Ted arrived and my mother poured a little of her tea into a saucer and, much to our delight, he drank it - and indeed drank the whole cup-full in this manner.

The day Gordon was born, I had been washing blankets when he `indicated' that he was on his way. Brian called for the midwife, an elderly lady, much experienced, thank goodness. She sent Brian off to get supplies of hot water (to which he commented quietly “did she want a shave..?” She did have a few hairs on her face, it is true).

As Gordon was born, there was an anguished call from my mother, who was in the room: “Joan, what have you been doing”? Apparently the umbilical cord was around his neck. This wonderful midwife waited until the right moment and slipped it over his head (there is nothing to beat the experience).

Gordon flourished till he was a few months old, when he developed gastroenteritis. He went from a bonny baby, to looking like an African famine victim. Nothing remained in his stomach, not even the medicine the doctor had given him.

I remembered that I had been told that, as a baby, my grandfather had (with the best intentions) given me a bottle that he thought contained a nourishing feed. I couldn't keep anything down either and was undoubtedly dying. In desperation Nanny prepared some brandy & water and poured it down my throat. Eventually I went to sleep.

There was a belief at that time amongst the seagoing fraternity, that the soul either left their bodies as the tide went out, or stayed if the tide came in! It was ascertained that the tide changed inward at 2am. So, an anxious vigil was kept, and apparently as the tide changed, I went into a natural sleep. Strange...!

What was there to lose? I did the same for Gordon - and it worked!
The next horror came soon afterwards. I had cleaned everything with Jeyes fluid, in order to kill any bugs that might be hanging around. I put the bottle at the back of the cupboard surface, out of reach, I thought.

Julia was a toddler and had never climbed before. She did now, reached for the bottle, slipped - and the fluid went into her eyes. Brian was in the garden and I yelled for him to help me hold her head under the tap while I desperately tried to swill the stuff away.

The pain in her eyes must have been awful. The doctor, when he came, assured me that I had done the right thing and we could only wait and see whether there had been any damage. Thankfully, all was well, but I still go cold when I think of those narrow escapes.