I recently offered this small, festive piece of personal memorabilia to my good colleague in Bermuda, Roger Sherratt for his police 'bygones' blog relating to those of us privileged few who were once lucky enough to have lived and served on those idyllic Islands in the mid-Atlantic. After posting it to him, I have decided to offer it up as my own little blog for an exposure to the rest of the world.
’Twas the Night Before Christmas …
Twas the night
Before Christmas
When all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
Not even a mouse
The stockings all hung
By the chimney with care
In hopes
That St. Nicholas
Soon would be there …
Clement Clarke Moore (1779 - 1863)
At this festive time of year Roger asks of his colleagues past and present, to remember and record bygone memories of Christmas times spent in the Islands - for me, a span of some 50 years since. Lynn and I were to marry at Hamilton Register Office in 1965 and so next year is the golden one, but ask Lynn and she will assert that I have remembered only about 20 of them! Anyway, what has that got to do with Christmas’s past? Well, there is a tacit connection in my case, so get a bottle of Bacardi and some of those mince pies and I will explain.
Harman’s Bay, Somerset.
As Christmas approached in 1965, not only were the turkeys getting fattened up for for the festive season but Mrs McQuaid was by now extremely large with child. With the cottage by now watertight and the front jungle converted into a passable lawn, where else on earth would anyone choose to be than on the edge of the Great Sound, isolated amidst one of the largest undeveloped areas of the Island and looking East towards Hamilton harbour - especially on my rent! Of course, in between times I worked hard patrolling the highways and byways of the Western side of Bermuda and controlling crime to earn a meagre living for my soon to be enlarged family. I suppose in many ways I was halfway to heaven - but down on earth, fatherhood loomed!
Around the 18th day of that December the ominous warnings of imminent childbirth began - like the rumbling of thunder before a great storm or the shaking of buildings during an earthquake - well it perhaps wasn’t quite like that, but Lynn certainly described feelings which led us to abandon ship and prepare to head to the safe enclosure of KEMH at Hamilton for her delivery. I had borrowed my good friend Bob Holdbrook’s blue mini and when loaded up with our requirements we were to make base in good time and without incident. In no time at all, my good lady was whisked away from me, prepared for her ordeal and placed into a side ward.
I need to digress here once more, this time for the benefit of any younger people who might not understand. It is to inform you that men, husbands that is, did not in those long-ago days, attend or partake in the birth of their offspring. Fathers in the room was just taboo and I remember clearly that this suited me fine as I never did like to witness great pain at a close proximity. Anyway, that is the way it was then and so ushered into a nearby waiting room, Matron assured me that I would be well informed of any progress and that they would indeed take great care of my precious cargo as it underwent this very common ritual; I knew my place.
Within an hour or so, I was officially informed that the magic moment was probably a little further off than first anticipated and that I could relax; perhaps return home? I chose to stay and when approached by a young off-duty nurse, (whom I knew well from my very recent courting days), I felt justified in doing so when she informed me that she was off to the nurse’s Christmas party being held that very night and just across the way: would I like to tag along?
“Oh gosh no, but I couldn’t, my dear wife is in there and about to give birth” I asserted, but with very weak conviction.
Well, after being assured that they all knew what I was hanging around for and that as soon as anything might happen of interest to me they would be able to whip me away for the moment. Well, that seemed O.K. to me, so off I went to the ball.
I don’t remember too much of the actual party but it appears that I got pretty well laced. I do though, recall being discovered in some sort of bike shed, apparently asleep on a concrete floor and looking decidedly rough. It was by now 8.30am and I slowly began to remember where I was and the reason for my presence - quel horreur - my wife! my baby! - was this day to be a defining one in my life? In panic, believing that I was well and truly in the dog house, I headed for the ward.
KEMH Maternity Ward - 1965
A Child is Born
Another discernible memory I retain is that of the ‘old fashioned’ approach to maternity care at the hospital in Bermuda and indeed, in England. Securely locked doors which afforded only lawful access to a small ‘viewing room’ which in turn was separated from the busy nursery by large glass ‘observation’ windows. Being somewhat akin to visiting hours at Casemates, no physical contact was allowed, especially in the hours immediately following birth when babies were held up high by the nurses on the business side of the glass and pirouetted like dolls to display their features.
What I do need to tell you however, is that upon my tardy arrival I was greeted by the self-same nurse who had earlier inveigled me into her drinking den and whom I was later prepared to accuse of getting me drunk or worse. Between them, my apparently forgiving wife and the nurses on duty were awaiting my arrival seemingly hell-bent on some sort of feminine vengeance plot. Being directed to the observation point at the window I was next approached by my nurse ‘friend’, now returned for the morning and carefully cradling my precious bundle - oh how my little heart was beating! With a deft flick of her fingers and right in front of me, she folded back the blanket to expose the most beautiful little black baby girl you would ever wish to see. This awful attempt at humour did actually work for a few seconds as I violently shook my head in a manner suggesting that a mistake had surely occurred. My face must have been a picture as just about the whole shift of nurses came forward to congratulate me and as a special favour, they unlocked the portals to the inner sanctum and allowed me a visit to Lynn beside whom, in a small cot lay my very own, first-born child and son, red-faced, tousled black hair which was wet and matted: looking not unlike a skinned rabbit lying on the kitchen worktop, he had only just arrived!
Monday, 20th December, 1965 was indeed a special day for us, as of course such moments have been for the many of us over the years, but this was my stellar moment, Michael John weighed in at 8lbs, 3ozs which is not a bad weight in anybody’s book and when the time was right - up to 10 days in some cases in those days - he would be joining us at tranquil and festive Leastways.
Yo Ho Ho!
‘He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.’
Christmas was by this time well upon us and as Lynn lay abed at Hamilton cuddling her new charge, the ‘nouveau papa’ made himself busy around the family home. A small tree was acquired to which I applied my artistic best, crepe-paper streamers and silver glitter; the usual wrapped up presents lay about the very small area of our little home, whilst great excitement mounted. Christmas Eve duly arrived, finding me still temporarily separated from my precious charges, and to say the least, I was a little gloomy until I received a telephone call from the hospital to say that Lynn and baby Michael, were to be liberated prematurely on Christmas Eve; my sudden joy knew no bounds! The Mini was requisitioned once more and I drove off into the morning rush hour to collect my invaluable presents.
A minor mishap was realised on my arrival at the hospital, when, in all the excitement of the morning, I had driven off having forgotten to remove my very expensive topcoat from the car roof, which must have slid off somewhere along the journey. I never never saw it again. (I wonder if anyone in Bermuda is still wearing it today?) But more important things were happening and before long we three were bumping in Bob’s little car down the very precarious and rutted track which led from Sound View Road, under the wooden bridge and the overhanging cedar tree, just about on its last legs and onto the front of our house. With bundle in arms, we went into our home to enjoy our first Christmas as a family. But we were not taking into account a serious problem which need to be resolved - and this, sooner rather than later.
Bah Humbug!
Lynn has never retained a great memory of my former colleagues from Bermuda, but there is one man, now passed on, whom she frequently recalls. What rankles with her, even to the present time and especially at this time of year, relates to events on the day which I have been describing, the 24th December 1965; her memory goes something like this.
All of my preparations for her homecoming seemed to have passed muster, but whilst our excitement knew no bounds what was pretty daunting about the situation was that we were now totally on our own; isolated. It rapidly dawned on us that we had no follow-up care or help from the authorities and worst of all, no other family member was nearer than about 3,500 miles away and this realisation soon began to play upon our minds. In an effort to cheer her up I recall making the crass remark to her that ‘all we needed to to do was to feed him at one end and clean him up at the other.’ - rocket science advice, that was not and which went down like a lead balloon! Then to compound this situation, yet another, even worse thought came to both of us when I realised that in the haste of the moment and combined with her unexpected and early discharge from hospital, I had not taken into consideration the small fact that I was scheduled to work a night shift that very night. I realised that it was extremely short notice and on contacting Sonny Roberts, my erstwhile shift sergeant, I was informed that my chances were slim as the minimum staff could not be spared further. Following his conference with the station Inspector, George Taylor, Sonny was to advise me that I must turn out and that childbirth could not rate as exceptional reasons or grounds. Our dream was rapidly becoming a nightmare.
Astonished as the reader might be in today’s enlightened society, I did go to work that night and left a frightened new mother at home with her little one. I enquired of her quite recently whether I did in fact return home during that shift and she assured me that I most certainly did not, it seems that I went off to Hamilton to provide cover in the capital; it is all very clear in her memory as she recalls that her eyes never closed until I came home the following morning. At the same time, for once and for all Lynn was at least able to lay the lie as to the legend of Rudolph’s supposed visits, as she heard not a sound, nor saw anything! Suffice to say that that Christmas day was punctuated - apart from working out what to do with our wonderful, living, Christmas gift - mainly the sounds of snoring.
=====================
Epilogue
 |
| Inspector George Arthur Edward Taylor |
And a very merry Christmas to you all.
February 6, 2010
Please pass on my condolences to the family of the late 'sonny' Roberts, an icon of the Somerset police station when I was a young officer on the island in the 1960s. Always honest and straightforward, he was a man I admired and whom I always thought was a great ambassador for his country. May he rest in peace.
John McQuaid
February 6, 2010
Postnote:
Now then, hands up anyone who believes that this was a picture of Michael that I took that Christmas day morning after returning from my night shift.
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