Jan
had had a good pregnancy, and was feeling well, but given the rather
precipitate birth of Rod we felt it was appropriate to have the safety of the
Margate Hospital maternity ward. Given Rod had had jaundice, and Jan had been
blocked from breast-feeding, she wanted one more opportunity to experience it
in the context of a restful environment and with the support of the nursing
staff. Our beautiful Harriet Louise was born with no complications on the 26th October
1973. She thrived, and we were able to take her home on the 5th November.
I mention that date, because it was Guy
Fawkes night, that weird annual celebration of someone trying to blow up the
British Houses of Parliament. Of course with Jonathan being 5 and a half and
Roderick being 3 and a half I had had the fantasy of giving the boys the
experience of being like the rest of the population in celebrating with
fireworks in our front garden at Old Gates. I had not been extravagant, but did
have a couple of Catherine Wheels, several small rockets to be set off from
milk bottles, a packet of sparklers and a couple of Golden Rain fireworks which
could be held in a gloved hand.
It was not a success. I had trouble fixing the
Catherine Wheels to the back fence so that they spun correctly, and one fell
off and continued trying to spin on the ground; causing much alarm. The rockets
worked, but were less than spectacular. Every time something went bang, Rod
became frightened and ran to hide indoors, and no-one wanted to hold sparklers
or Golden Rain. And of course Jan was not really in the mood, being rightly
focused on our new baby and protecting her from all the noise. Not one of my
finer moments.
The following morning I picked up the sad
remnants of spent fireworks, the smoke covered milk bottles and the wires from
dead sparklers. I looked round the garden, and back at the house, and felt a
sense of pride in what we had achieved. It was such a beautiful house and we
had invested immense energy in painting, remodeling and upgrading. Why would we
want to leave? Why would we want to uproot a very settled and well off life,
now with two fine and healthy young boys and a healthy infant daughter, all of
whom would be only 14 months older for our emigration if the plans all fell
into place? It all seemed so insane. And yet, I could not see myself mouldering
away as a GP for the next 30 or so years; professionally there had to be
something more. And we had started a ball rolling down a hill, and the process
was slowly gathering its own momentum. We had discussed the whole thing over
and over, and Jan continued to be supportive of the decision despite the
enormous practical difficulties. We argued that if it did not work, if we were
not happy, then after 18 months or so we could always come home. We were
alternately anxious and excited, and focused on the opportunities rather than
the problems and the sheer hard work that might be involved in creating a new
environment for our growing family. And we did not know just how much we did
not know about our chosen new country, and how harsh and unforgiving it could
be.
I
wrote to Australia House in London, seeking the necessary application papers to
emigrate. I was told we would need UK passports for everyone, and would also
need an Australian sponsor. So in my correspondence with Dr. Gerard, I asked if
he or a member of the staff would be able to do this. That apparently did not
fit into the rules. Yes, we had to have confirmed employment, but the sponsor
had to be 'independent'. So I wrote to my grandfather in Sydney asking him to
sponsor us. He made some enquiries, and apparently a sponsor had to come from
the state to which we were immigrating. We did not feel close enough to our old
friends Kiah and Jan from 1963, having had little contact in the intervening
years, and for the same reason felt unable to ask my parents’ old friend Alf in
whose house they had lived for the three years. We considered Jim Silsbury from
the Waite Institute with whom I had worked for three months, and although he
was still working there, again we felt it would be an imposition. Eventually
reading about migration and sponsorship we came across Hutchinson’s, a building
company that sponsored migrants – with a catch. You had to purchase one of
their newly built houses to live in. An odd arrangement to get around
bureaucracy, but if that was what we had to do, then so be it.
If
we could sell Old Gates quickly, we would have enough of a deposit on a house.
We would certainly need to set up a home quickly, and did not know Adelaide and
its suburbs well enough to worry about where the house would be. We remembered
it as a compact city, with no journey in any direction taking that long,
compared to the years we had spent in London.
On
the other hand, it has always seemed to me that sponsorship should be by
someone who knew enough about you to. Curiously, we ended up with a sponsor who
knew nothing about us except we were locked into a commercial contract. Jeff
did very kindly arrange for us to live in a ‘hospital flat’ – a house just
across the road from the hospital, though this was going to be limited to 6
weeks after arrival.
So
the arrangements slowly fell into place throughout 1974.
We
did our planning around beginning work in Adelaide to begin in January 1975. I
suppose that was good from the point of view of being paid, but ultimately I
was to learn that not much ever seems to happen in Australia in January. The
weather is hot, children don’t go back to school after the summer holiday until
early February, and many staff members take the opportunity for a long break
over Christmas and New Year. We were to arrive just before Christmas, which
gave us time to settle in somewhat, but meant not having Christmas with the
family in England; which was probably a mistake.
The other way you find out about family and
how they really feel about your actions in life is when they write down their
experiences in their own memoir. Jan’s mum Bobbie did not do this until
prompted in the late 1980s when staying with us in Adelaide, and sometimes with
time on her hands. Her story of our emigration to Australia is worth recording
because it reminds you that families are systems, and every action somewhere in
system has a reaction somewhere else. That is just a technical way of saying
that my choice of a new career direction caused immense pain to others in the
family, and ripples through the community of Birchington. For us, the future
was an exciting adventure, admittedly with a range of anxieties, and problems
to be solved. For others, we left a vacuum. I take the liberty of publishing
Bobbie’s story because I could not write it better.
“Now the next
bombshell! That pine kitchen at ‘Old Gates’ is starkly etched in my mind
coupled with Graham’s announcement that they were emigrating to Australia, and
would we join them. Was this to soften the blow, as blow it was. A gorgeous
baby girl Harriett had been born the previous year. The close affinity between
her and Graham was unbelievable from the start. The pressure of general
practice was very heavy on Graham and the attitude of the other partners did
not help. His heart was not in it, and Barbara Castle’s harassment of the
medical profession during the term of a Labour government proved the last straw.
He and Janet had spent a holiday in Australia in 1965 while his parents were
there. His grandparents lived in Sydney, several uncles and numerous cousins
were strewn around that large continent. An advert in ‘The Lancet’ for a
trainee child psychiatrist at Adelaide Children’s Hospital proved irresistible.
He applied for the post and got it; much to his surprise I think. We could only
stagger under the blow, force a smile and wish them luck. There was no question
of us going. I could not desert Wendy and Sheila was young and having a
difficult time. Graham’s mother had died of cancer while they were living at
‘Kingsmead’ in 1970. A shattering blow for him, as they were very close, so he
had no one to leave that he cared about. Those lonely, lonely years for Jan,
the heartache, I don’t honestly think Graham had any idea of how she felt. Our
family ties are so close. My three sons-in-law find it difficult to understand.
Living so near we
were involved in all the packing up and selling of the house. For a few weeks
they lived with us after the furniture had set sail. Bitter sweet memories.
Lovely, lovely Harriet, just over a year old, giving Reg an indignant piece of
her mind when he picked up the newspaper or a book instead of attending to her.
She was just learning to walk, but used his index finger as a prop while she
explored the house and garden. Graham was enthusiastic and excited, at last a
new career, a new beginning in the field of medicine he had always wanted. We
were desolate. Sheila cried all night. On our return from the station after
seeing them off, there was the empty button box, the buttons all over the
floor; Harriet had been playing with them. The stiff upper lip crumbled and we
all dissolved into tears overwhelmed by a crushing sense of loss. I remember
Kate taking over and making the inevitable answer to a crisis – a cup of tea.
Reg and I were numb, and behaved like zombies for weeks. Dear Sheila, how
wonderful, thoughtful and caring she was in our misery. She came home every
weekend, organised a Christmas day with my sister, a Christmas Eve dinner at a
Greek restaurant in London, even a Christmas stocking for each of us on
Christmas morning. To my everlasting shame I did not think about one for her.
They had flown away on 16 December.”
