Chapter 3 Dad came back from the war and was in due course demobilised. When the Spanish 'flu hit Cape Town it was a very serious epidemic. The only one of us to catch it was Jim, who luckily had it mildly and recovered quickly. But the pressure on doctors was great, and my father found that he was being called out day and night until the time came when he felt that he MUST be able to sleep at night or else he would not be able to carry on at all. So he had an enormous chain and padlock on the front gate - and nobody could get in to ring the Night Bell. Dad�s main interest in his practice was obstetrics and gynaecology, hence the night calls. He gave full support to the idea of training coloured nurses and helped to found St Monica�s Maternity Home near Buitengracht Street. He was their first Medical Superintendent, and always ready to answer calls from there, and from the P.M.H. - the Peninsular Maternity Home in Woodstock. On one evening a week for many years St Monica's nurses gathered in our diningroom for Dad to lecture to them. He also lectured in clinical medicine to medical students at U.C.T. for over 30 years. He always hoped to get overseas for post-graduate study every five years, but didn�t always manage that period. In 1919 Aunt Emily came on a visit. We were somewhat over-awed by her, as she was tremendously strong and was full of anecdotes about her service as a policewoman in London during the War. To Church and Sunday School we went regularly each week. Gardens Church was about a mile from Aytoun, down Camp Street, across a side street and through the reservoir park. Morning service at 11 o�clock - Russell and I whiled away the time by pressing patterns onto our legs with our collection tickeys, and then snuggled up one each side of Mother for Dr McClure�s 40 to 50 minute sermon. When we were very young we went by car with Mother, but soon started walking regularly. We got home just in time for middle-day dinner, usually roast sirloin and a good filling pudding, followed by fruit, with fruit plates presented to each with a lace doily on it and a glass finger bowl with a begonia or nasturtium floating in it. In that happily teetotal household, Dad occasionally as a treat opened and shared among us one large bottle of ginger beer. Then there was the long walk back for Sunday School at 3 o�clock, then the slow pull up Camp Street to get home again for tea in the drawingroom on Sundays. For some years Mr Cooper, who managed an organ-building business, was the Gardens organist and I sang in the choir with practices under his guidance in the church hall before the morning service. Mr and Mrs Cooper lived near us, and Mother took me to visit Mrs Cooper in the nursing home when their first baby was born. This baby, Arthur, was a Down's Syndrome baby - a condition about which little was then known. Russell and I played very happily for some years with Arthur and his sister Margaret, until the Coopers went back to England. At an impressive service at Gardens church in 1921 Earl Haig unveiled the memorial to Gardens members who had died in the Great War, and Lady Haig unveiled a list of others who had served. In 1925 Dr McClure died of a heart attack on a Saturday afternoon after playing bowls. We went to Kloof Street Congregational Church service next morning - the whole Peninsula church-going community mourned his passing. When I was about 10 I was very proud of being a flower-girl (almost a bridesmaid!) in attendance on Miss McMertrie (I think that was her name) when she married Mr McArthy - she was a friend of some relations of ours and came out to marry him, and my parents made all the wedding arrangements - I think they went as missionaries to South West Africa. ~~***~~
|
