Eighty Not Out

ELIZABETH McCULLOUGH
was born in Derry in 1928 and grew up on the outskirts of Belfast. She ran the photographic department of Queen's University Belfast for five years, before leaving Northern Ireland in 1960 to join her husband-to-be – a parasitologist with the World Health Organisation – in Africa, where they lived for the next fifteen years. She is the author of a number of books including
A Square Peg: An Ulster Childhood
and
Late Developer: A Greenhorn in Ghana 1960–65
. She now lives in North Berwick.

Blackstaff Press
Belfast

 

 

 

First published in 2012 by

Blackstaff Press

4c Sydenham Business Park

Belfast
BT3 9LE

with the assistance of

The Arts Council of Northern Ireland

© Text, Elizabeth McCullough, 2012

© Cover photograph, Elizabeth McCullough, 2012

All rights reserved

Elizabeth McCullough has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

Cover design by Lisa Dynan
Produced by Blackstaff Press

A
CIP
catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

PRINT ISBN
– 978 0 85640 887 8

EPUB ISBN
– 978-0-85640-051-3

MOBI ISBN
– 978-0-85640-052-0

www.blackstaffpress.com

 

 

 

She thought of the narrowness of the limits within which a human soul may speak and be understood by its nearest mental kin, of how soon it reaches that solitary land of the individual experience, in which no fellow footfall is ever heard.

Olive Schreiner,
The Story of an African Farm
(1883)

Contents

 

 

Acknowledgements

Prologue: Minus Nine Months

  
1  Derry to Greenisland

  
2  Outer Suburbia in Knock

  
3  Kindergarten with the Misses Fitzgerald

  
4  Strathearn School under Miss Miskelly

  
5  Victoria College under Mrs Faris

  
6  Work, Recreation and Liaisons

  
7  Marriage, Separation and a Radical Decision

  
8  Weighing Anchor – Liverpool to Takoradi

  
9  Induction

10  Total Immersion

11  Generation

12  New World Interlude

13  Kenya – Uganda – Tanzania

14  Debilitating Afflictions

15  Turning Point

16  On the Run from Amin – Goodbye to East Africa

17  From Drumlins to Alps via Congo Brazzaville

18  Well of Loneliness

19  Rock Bottom to Release

Epilogue: Soaring on an Updraft

Maps

Northern Ireland and Donegal

Ghana

The Game Reserves of East Africa

The East Africa Community Countries: Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania

Franco-Swiss Border

Family Tree

Acknowledgements

 

 

To all persons involved in aid projects throughout Africa. Irrespective of profession, the challenges faced are similar. My own experience relates to working with my husband, Fergus, whose expertise was in the field of debilitating diseases such as Guinea-worm disease (dracunculiasis), and bilharziasis (schistosomiasis).

In memory of Dr Vivian Gotto, former reader in zoology, Queen's University, Belfast, who, while terminally ill, wrote a Foreword for my book
Late Developer: A Greenhorn in Ghana 1960–65
. He was my husband's mentor during the preparation of his M.Sc. thesis; the men shared an interest in parasitic diseases, and both were fanatical tennis players. Vivian took satisfaction in his role as fairy godmother when, in 1955, Fergus returned to Queen's from Ghana to write his Ph.D. thesis. I had just been appointed university photographer.

A tribute to my husband, Fergus, who died aged sixty-nine on May Day 1995: his early death was caused by haemolytic anaemia, a condition often found in patients who have suffered multiple attacks of malaria. Also to our three children, Katharine, Mary and Michael, who suffered anguish during the years 1977–87 when my alcoholism reached, in
AA
jargon, ‘rock bottom'.

For anyone whose life has been affected, directly or indirectly, by the disease of alcoholism. In gratitude to
AA
groups in Geneva and Ferney-Voltaire, which agonised over my lamentably slow progress towards sobriety: in particular Canadian Ted Hooper, who lived long enough to see his conviction, that I would make it in the end, fulfilled. To these should be added Ed, my counsellor at Broadway Lodge in 1981, whom I traced as recently as February 2012; now 77, he lives in Tenerife.

For Donald Gilchrist,
FRCS
, who cared for my husband after his heart attack in 1971. We were stationed at Mwanza, on the southern shores of Lake Victoria, and the nearest cardiologist was in Nairobi. Donald provided moral as well as medical support at a critical time in all our lives. Most of his professional career was spent working in remote mission hospitals under adverse conditions; the same age as me, he now lives in a retirement home in Lancashire.

For my friend Judge Lillian Fisher, first met on the foothills of Kilimanjaro in 1969, who encouraged me to write, and with whom I have corresponded ever since – she becoming
PC
and e-mail literate long before me. With her husband, Bernie, she visited us in France in the eighties, and we stayed with them in Arizona in 1993. Lillian, now ninety, remains an active Democrat; the local press will no longer publish her letters, but she knew and mourns for all who died, or were injured, in the shooting in Tucson on 8 January 2011.

To John and Rosemary McMahon, doctors who devoted a great part of their lives to the field of public health, nutrition and parasitic diseases. A close friend since we first met in 1967, Rosemary lost a protracted and painful battle with arthritis in October 2010; John, who cared for her when she was not in hospital, now lives in a Quaker retirement home near their daughter and grandson in Sidcot, Somerset; their two sons and a granddaughter are in Australia.

For Val Corey and Joy MacDonald, who acted as proofreaders in the early days, and to Ken Ford who has cheerfully taken many packets to the post office since October 2009, when I finished writing this book. To Bob Jones, who has helped with photographs and never fails to sort out problems stemming from my incompetence. Gratitude to Maura Pringle at Queen's University, recruited only recently, on the advice of Noel Mitchel, to draw the maps: she has done a superlative job. Thanks to Patsy Horton and Helen Wright at Blackstaff Press and Hilary Bell, who edited the
MS
, for their infinite patience on finding yet another bunch of ill-coordinated overnight thoughts in the morning inbox.

Lastly, for Dodi, who will be eighty-seven on 30 June, and Arthur Norris, who married my aunt Rosemary in 1957 and who will celebrate his ninety-eighth birthday on 10 July.

Prologue

Minus Nine Months

H
alf of me has been waiting nearly six years for a determined sperm to reach and pierce my defences. Assuming each ovary in the dark cavern I inhabit first began to produce eggs ripe for fertilisation some eighteen years ago, and taking into account my place in the queue, the number of eggs lost every month, the ageing factor and the fact that an infusion of sperm arrives seldom, the chances of my ever joining the human race had been rapidly dwindling. Now, this August of the Dublin Horse Show, I am an entity. Last night he returned, less inebriated than usual, and injected a host of lively swimmers, one of which – or is it whom? – penetrated my outer layer. Was there an element of wanting to punish my mother in the violence of the final thrust? Given luck, wholesome nourishment and little disturbance, I should join the common herd in April.

Already I know more than is good for me and am impatient with my mother, who, not realising she is pregnant, subjects me to jolts and knocks while she canters her horse and jumps fences. Finally, after four months, something was applied to the wall outside, and I heard heavy breathing and stern voices. Thereafter, the routine has been more restful, although not without occasional interference, provoking more raised voices and my mother's accelerated heartbeat. Sometimes she plays the piano, which is soothing, but more often she does mad things like going for a swim. I am used to being in a watery cocoon, but sounds indicate a violent environment with slaps and swoops more alarming than the horse-jumping. The worst was a flight in a noisy aeroplane – embryos have sensitive ears, and mine popped quite painfully.

I am impatient to join the world, even though its inhabitants seem to be in perpetual dispute, if only to voice my own views – ‘shoving your oar in' was my mother's term for such precocious participation.

1

Derry to Greenisland

W
hat a relief, the comfortable little bag had become claustrophobic; now, after the initial shock, I am getting used to the light. Competent hands wiped me free of messy substances, cut the pulsating cord linking me to my mother, and swaddled me tightly, before laying me in a cot beside her bed. It would have been nice to have been taken into her arms, but the competent hands were busy making comforting noises as they washed and wiped. A mass of wavy auburn hair lay on the pillows surrounding a beautiful but exhausted face: she did not even glance in my direction. I was further hurt when a pink-faced young man with fair curly hair peered into my cot before remarking to my mother: ‘Well done, Dorothy, old thing – what a pity it's a girl.' The nurse looked affronted as he left without kissing my mother. It is a nice room with a large window overlooking a rock garden, small pond and a lawn that graduates to fields, where two horses are grazing. An avenue of beech trees, surrounded by clusters of daffodils, leads to a busy main road. Distant voices come from other parts of what seems to be quite a large house. There are small panes of coloured glass at the top of the window – I like this room but wish someone would lay me on my mother's somewhat flat chest.

She seems to be sleeping, so I provoke some action by the only means I can, and begin a relentless wail. It feels good; I am surprised how strong my lungs are and how it brings instant results. The nurse appears, lifts me out of the cot and puts me on my mother's chest near a dark swollen nipple. The nurse says something about the milk coming down and breasts needing stimulus from a hungry infant. She grasps my head too firmly for comfort and forces it onto the nipple, squashing my nose and making it hard to breathe; my mother's involvement in this operation is minimal, but after all, we are both beginners at this game. They squeeze, and I chomp away until something nice enters my mouth, but not enough. They change me to the other side – same sequence. We are both tired and doze off in the weak afternoon sunlight, which throws multicoloured patterns through the stained glass onto the counterpane.

There is a lot of talk over the next few days about the milk being there, but the flow is inhibited by my mother's state of mind. She is encouraged not to be so tense and to enjoy the baby. I am frustrated and perpetually hungry; she is awash with apprehension. They decide to change to bottle-feeding: this is horrible – a smelly rubber teat instead of that comforting breast; a thin substance to swallow, after which I get griping spasms and often vomit the lot when they try to wind me.

My mother asks the kindly family doctor questions about my health prospects, and in particular, the risk posed by heredity. Ahead of his time, the doctor says that alcoholism is a disease, which seems to run in families, but that being female should be an advantage. Conveniently, he chooses to ignore the often outlandish behaviour of my paternal grandmother, Eileen, and her elder sister, Charlotte, who is incarcerated in Letterkenny Asylum. My father refers to the institution as the loony bin and says they put the wrong one away. The sisters and their two brothers had been brought up in Waterford by austere, unadorned, grey-stuff-clad, Plymouth Brethren grandparents. The fate of the children's parents is not recorded: no paintings or photographs remain – they might as well have never existed. My grandmother's two nephews, Homer and Charles, prospered in the
US
, becoming pillars of their community in Hartford, Connecticut.

Grandfather David's beautiful first wife Maggie, whom he met during a visit to Harrogate Spa, died shortly after their son, Hugh, was born in 1891; a wet nurse and a succession of nannies followed. Four years later David fell for the forceful Eileen, who, after training at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin, had been appointed matron of the Derry City Hospital. A photograph records a modestly dressed couple, heads bent in joint study of the Good Book. David was an astute businessman, but respected in the community as a man of probity. His tastes were not extravagant, and I suspect the vulgar tiepins inherited by me were gifts from Eileen; one a seven-diamond horseshoe, the other a shamrock of ruby, sapphire and diamond. His heavy signet ring I wear to this day. The mock-Tudor mansion on the outskirts of Derry had been built for Maggie, of whom Eileen expunged all traces, apart from a pair of mother-of-pearl opera glasses engraved with her initials. The presence of Hugh, however, was a constant reminder of his first marriage, so she manipulated David – in the best interests of the child of course – to send him to boarding school in Cumbria at the age of seven. At what stage Charlotte joined the family is not known, nor how much time passed before she was certified insane. My father's account of a trip to Paris, during which her overindulgence in wine had resulted in unbecoming behaviour, cannot be without foundation.

David was also responsible for his Uncle John, said to be not the full shilling. Photographs show a fine-featured elderly man with a goatee beard. A bachelor who went on frequent shooting excursions to the Free State, his handicap cannot have been severe. He was still alive, having suffered years of Eileen's brutal regime, when my mother took over management of the house late in 1922 and my grandmother moved to a flat in Crawford Square in the centre of Derry. His last years were, in comparison, tranquil.

What sort of man is my father? He has shown so little interest in me that I fear we may never get to know each other. His interests seem limited to breeding fox terriers, shooting wildfowl and maintaining his image as a generous man-abouttown; with a sense of humour arrested at schoolboy level, his cultural interests are apparently nonexistent. Well-read nineteenth-century books in the library bear the names of his father or great-grandfather, who founded the family business in 1820. He was sent to Sedbergh, the same school as Hugh, at the age of thirteen in the hope that he might acquire some polish and lose his regional accent. He absconded to join the army at sixteen, but Eileen exerted influence to ensure he never saw active service. Hugh was killed at Passchendaele in 1917, which is how my father came to inherit Stevenson's Bakery and Restaurant on the death of his father in 1921. Six years later the small empire was in dire straits and a manager, who was to hold 51 per cent of the shares, took over its direction.

Three weeks elapse after my birth, at the end of which my mother is allowed out of bed. She instantly takes charge by dismissing the nurse and driving to the pharmacy in search of advice on the best brands of infant formula, it having transpired that what was in my bottle was watered cow's milk. Two grandmothers and one grandfather have joined the support group, the most voluble being Eileen, whose repeated enquiry, ‘No sign of a little stranger yet?', had exasperated my mother. She is overjoyed by the event, which she predicts will bring her son to his senses. My mother's parents, Stonard and Rosa, are quieter, having learned only recently that the marriage was in deep trouble – and why.

A Protestant cook and Catholic parlour-maid take care of running the house, while the kennels and stables are in the care of a general handyman. There is a full-time gardener and a chauffeur, whose duties involve not only maintaining the Alvis in shiny, roadworthy condition, but accompanying my father to business meetings and liquid lunches in Derry. At the conclusion of these he is expected to deliver his boss home for an evening with the family. Sometimes the car does not return, so it is assumed a whim has taken it into the Free State to some pub in Donegal – Buncrana, Greencastle, Carndonagh, or even as far as Malin. The telephone is unreliable, so the adults pass many evenings dreading the state in which my father will arrive home. A legal separation had been agreed before my conception, so we are in the phasing-out period before the house sale is concluded, and new owners found for the livestock. My mother and I are to join her parents at Greenisland, situated on the coast between Belfast and Carrickfergus in County Antrim, while my father will move to Worthing to live with a woman more sympathetic to his frailties than my mother. They met at the Dublin Horse Show, which makes it unfair that my mother is not divorcing him on grounds of adultery rather than settling for a legal separation. Such social stigma is attached to divorce that only the aristocracy or the royal family get away with it. Already I am cynical.

They put me outside in a smart baby carriage, sprung on high wheels, with a silk canopy to protect my face from the strong spring sunlight. Hours pass while I sleep and swell. I am fed at regular intervals by one grandparent or other, but seldom by my mother, who is busy packing her few belongings with sentimental value to take to Greenisland. Because Eileen left the house fully furnished as a thoughtful gift to the newlyweds, they are few – a grandfather clock, bought at auction in Lifford, a Georgian bureau and bookcase, a Victorian corner cupboard, a George II silver tea-service, some ivory carvings and a green lustre bowl on a Chinese carved base. My father has sold her hunter, Nimrod, to a woman with a notoriously hard hand on the bit, but she still has her Kerry Blue, Michael. Sometimes they bring my pram into the oak-panelled dining room while they eat a light lunch – my father does not appear for these meals, as he will join the young business bloods of Derry for lunch at the club. No doubt he is taking legal advice from his friends on how best to settle on an annuity for his estranged wife. They will stick together, these superior young men, making excuses for my father's irresponsible lifestyle. A minimal payout will be deemed sufficient, as ‘after all, it's not as if it were a son needing a public school education, but a daughter who need only acquire a modicum of ladylike accomplishments, before going on the marriage market'. So, with those thoughts in mind, a legal separation is arranged, allowing my mother a fixed income derived from a capital sum, considerable in the thirties, but dwindling to borderline poverty by the end of World War II.

I am precocious, always an outsider, observing, listening, judging, wanting to voice my opinion, to influence events. Power is what I would like, but so far it is restricted to infant bawls. I can experiment with the volume and intensity, reach a crescendo, then stop abruptly. This technique guarantees the arrival of an adult fearing I have stopped breathing: an engaging smile ensures being picked up and cuddled.

There are pictures of my first Christmas. I am sitting on the floor beside a decorated tree, surrounded by toys, most prominent of which is an orange velvet cat with long bendy limbs, a flat black fur face, hands, feet and long tail. Known as Black Pussy, he has survived the years, now a bit twisted, fur thin in places, but recognisable. Felix, the cartoon cat, is satinstitched on a bib with a scalloped blue edging. Felix's tongue is padded and bright red.

My mother and I are soon installed at her parents' house. My Aunt Rosemary attends the Belfast School of Art, and has been evicted from a large first-floor bedroom because of our presence. Her room is now in the attic, next to the maid's room, and she is not best pleased. In time I grow to love my aunt, despite her gift of emitting an aura of displeasure, ensuring all within range keep their distance. An explosion would clear the air, but so repressed are emotions on my mother's side of my family that a wary atmosphere can last for days. I much prefer the less inhibited approach of my Derry relations, whom I would like to think of as pure Irish. Inspection of the family tree indicates the Waterford connection goes back only as far as 1832 when Plymouth Brethren from south-west England settled in Ireland. The Church of Scotland forebears on my paternal side moved to Ulster from Dumfries and Galloway in the late eighteenth century. On my mother's side, Grandfather, otherwise known as Gramp, came from the Barrow-in-Furness peninsula, and Grandmother Rosa from Newcastle upon Tyne, as recently as 1910, when my grandfather was Lloyd's surveyor for the
Titanic
at Harland and Wolff's shipyard in Belfast. They fell in love with Ireland to the extent of spending their first summer holiday at Gweedore in County Donegal.

I have a highchair to the left of my grandfather's carving chair. My mother sits opposite me, my aunt on my left, and Grandmother Rosa, with her back to the bay window, which overlooks Belfast Lough, at the opposite end to my grandfather. My plate has a raised rim; it has a painting of two bears playing golf on the bottom. I also have a silver spoon and pusher. I like the formality of meals and the fact that Gramp often serves me first, even if he does comment on my table manners and the fact that sometimes I am greedy in demanding another slice of meat from the Sunday joint. Meal patterns do not vary from week to week: Monday brings cold cuts from the previous day; Tuesday shepherd's pie; Wednesday, toad-in-the-hole; Thursday, mutton stew; Friday, fish; Saturday, roast chicken. The only things I really do not like are herrings, which have little prickly bones no matter how carefully the grown-ups say they have removed them, and tripe and onion casserole, which Rosa, with her Newcastle background, and my mother encourage the rest of us to try. Gramp and Auntie Rosemary resist, so they are given an alternative. Puddings are sometimes the nice sticky variety with custard, more often tapioca or semolina with a blob of jam or rhubarb, which I hate. Michael, whining piteously, nose to the door, is not allowed in the dining room. Across the hall, opposite the dining room, is the drawing room, where Gramp has a globe of the world and a brass telescope. There is a stuffed Indian alligator, although I do not think any of my ancestors have been to India. When I get a little older, I am told to say that my father works there. This is my favourite room. Gramp reads fables from Aesop, Greek myths adapted for children,
The Water Babies
, many Beatrix Potter stories, my favourites being
Peter Rabbit, Two Bad Mice
and
Squirrel Nutkin
. He tries to interest me in stories from the Bible, and my lack of interest disappoints him. With the help of a torch, a ping-pong ball and the globe, he teaches me the rudiments of the solar system. He has a workshop with a lathe – a fine example of his work survives: a doll's cradle too fragile to be played with, and sadly missing a finial, from which the net curtains should drape. We mark the tennis court together, or rather he lets me think I am helping, and we potter around the garden deadheading flowers.