Eighty Not Out (25 page)

In November Fergus attended a conference on all aspects of schistosomiasis held in Geneva, returning via Dar, where he gave a talk at the annual general meeting of Medical Missionaries. He felt that the Geneva talks had not been productive, despite the vast cost of getting so many experts together around one table: yet another example of conflict between ivory tower administrators, who spend a few days only visiting field projects, and those who actually work there. He had met the chief personnel officer, who admitted that a number of staff members in similar positions to ours wanted to return to a more temperate climate. He said that the organisation was examining ways to deal with their ‘issues', and that there would be no question of sacrificing valuable long-serving staff members. All very cordial and chummy, but it would soon be fourteen years since Fergus began his career with
WHO
at the remote field station near Fort Rosebery in Northern Rhodesia.

The conviction that we were likely to remain at Mwanza for at least one more duty tour, added to our unease about continuing state interference at Isamilo Primary School, led us to explore the possibility of sending Katharine to a co-ed preparatory school near Eldoret in Kenya. We would not think of sending her to board in the
UK
, but Kenya was worth considering, involving only an overnight boat trip to Kisumu, followed by a reasonably short road trip to Eldoret a few miles north of the equator. We stayed at Eldoret in order to meet the headmaster of Kaptagat School, to which children of many
UN
parents and ex-colonial officers went: the head – ex-Dragon School in Oxford – had prudently taken Kenyan citizenship in 1956. Much would depend on events in newly independent Kenya. The arrival of Sven Christiansen, a Danish statistician from the
WHO
Epidemiological Centre in Nairobi, was fortuitous in this regard. His task was to make sense out of the wealth of facts, percentages and figures emanating from the Schistosomiasis Control Project. He and his wife, Kirsten, became good friends who gave us invaluable help during 1971–73 when Katharine was a pupil at Kaptagat in the highlands. She sometimes arrived in Nairobi by train with a group of fellow pupils from the school, and they met her off the train, having her for overnight stays before putting her on a plane to Mwanza.

In January 1970 we celebrated Michael's multicultural third birthday party. He joined a nursery school, which our young neighbour, Herta, had taken over. Strictly speaking, he should not have been at the school, being too young, and not near the top of the waiting list, but we hoped nobody would spot this and complain on grounds of racial discrimination or influence. Herta, whose husband, Peter Kilala, was deputy director at the institute, made the case that there were far too many Asian children in the group, who gabbled Gujarati at each other; their parents were keen that they should become fluent in English, thus raising their chance of entry to an independent primary school, and Michael's presence would be an asset. It crossed my mind that the Asian parents might be less appreciative were their offspring to air some of Michael's favourite expressions, such as ‘You are a stupidy gorm' or a ‘greedy gorb', used in defence when in dispute with his sisters.

In February we were visited by Dr Ansari. By this time we had a better measure of the man within, fuelled by reports from colleagues working at headquarters, who complained of his duplicitous behaviour and erratic moods. The American appointed to the job for which Fergus had been second choice, reported that he was unhappy, and little more than the departmental lackey. Notwithstanding, I pulled out all the stops, providing good meals, although disappointingly his appetite was never good; but he always brightened when the meal ended and a choice of liqueurs was offered with the coffee I had freshly roasted and ground. He was almost fulsome in praise of the project, saying it had the soundest baseline data, and best presented reports of all he had visited, and was insistent that Fergus should remain in charge until it had run its five-year course. Our inclination to remain with
WHO
was also strengthened by dawning realisation that the children's educational costs were only beginning; there were rumours too that retirement age might be reduced to fifty-five with increased benefits, and the possibility of consultantships thereafter. Dr Ansari implied that Fergus could have at any time one of the
WHO
academic professorial appointments in member countries, and that in his case, because of his vast experience of Africa, it would probably be in Nairobi; also hanging fire was a vacancy on the Bilharziasis Advisory Team, requiring three suitable candidates.

With all this in mind, the thought of sending Katharine to school just north of the equator did not seem so radical. We had visited the school and liked the headmaster: the climate was good and, because of the high altitude, it was situated above the malaria zone. Dormitories were spartan, with iron beds and small lockers, but the children appeared cheerful, mannerly and in rude health. The uniform was hideous: grey pleated skirts, a crude blue Aertex shirt, maroon sweaters, grey socks and brown shoes; a straw hat, like the one I had worn during the war, was obligatory when travelling – a cap for the boys. They would be happy to welcome Katharine in mid-September.

Sweden had approved a generous loan to Tanzania for the improvement of rural water supplies, and had sent a number of water chemists, engineers, and an epidemiologist to assess the project. An inadequate three weeks had been allocated to this task, so we had a lot of entertaining to do that spring. The Swedish team stayed in a variety of small hotels in Mwanza, most of which would not qualify for a one star rating today, so a visit to the delights of Bwiru made a pleasant break from the dusty, evil-smelling town centre.

The German community organised a dinner dance at the club, at which, under pressure from Herta, we put in an appearance. She was a Sudeten German who regarded herself as Czechoslovak; the northern Germans dismissed the southern ones as ignorant peasants, and the southern those in the north as irredeemable snobs. Herta was outnumbered by three to one, and there had been friction among the members of the organising committee. My part was to roast joints of pork and transport them to the club as a contribution to the main table. In addition, Herta had prepared schnitzels, sauerkraut, various salads, mango strudel and a rich trifle.

The unavailability of staple foodstuffs continued to be a problem, as was the rising cost of living and the fact that our post adjustment was one of the lowest in the organisation. Fergus's monthly salary, which had allowed us to save while we were in Ghana, was by this time insufficient, and I felt that unless the
UN
created a commissariat in Dar, to keep a store of goods not available locally, prospects for our next tour were dire. Meanwhile, I was helping Fergus to prepare a series of lectures, which had to be stencilled, as well as making slides of pollution and transmission sites in Mwanza and its environs.

A Pakistani public health engineer had joined the project team, and an independent American research worker in schistosomiasis, Margaret Magendantz, had offered to work in parallel with the team: she was a strange girl who could have been a professional violinist but had chosen biological research instead. Fergus said her work was irreproachable, but suspected she was making a token rejection of the
US
way of life. She had taken over the ‘prison' vacated by Jarockij and lived frugally. Tall and good-looking in an androgynous way, her long fair hair was tied in a pony tail and her clothing never varied from a shirt worn with a navy-blue divided skirt, and leather sandals held together with bits of wire; irrespective of the weather, she cycled daily to the institute on a second-hand bike bought in the market. Naïvety led her to leave her Stradivarius tied to the luggage carrier at a wayside duka; unsurprisingly it disappeared while she was inside. She was devastated by the loss, while our emotions were a mixture of sympathy, impatience and anger that such a beautiful instrument had been carelessly sacrificed: none of the locals would have had any idea of its value, and after some artless strumming it would have succumbed to the climate, probably ending as firewood. She became reclusive, seeing few people outside working hours, and was a constant worry to us – particularly after she contracted schistosomiasis through wading bootless in shallow water. Fergus, puzzled by her unexplained absence from work, had called at the prison and found her barely conscious. After hospitalisation, she made a slow recovery. It should be said that she was not the exception among research workers, who were notorious in taking risks where their own infection was concerned. I remember even Fergus showing me cercariae swimming in a test tube, his forefinger in the swarming soup.

Violent protest was erupting worldwide; this was the decade during which innocent populations were under attack by extremist movements, and terrorism and tribalism in one form or another began to plumb new depths of inhumanity. Air travel was no longer a luxury mode of transport, but a tedious process not unlike sheep-farming. Security gates, electronic checks and body searches became the norm, and flights to Northern Ireland were under particular scrutiny. Many letters from home contained increasingly depressing news about events in the North: intemperate proclamations from both nationalists and unionists fuelled outbreaks of violence not only on the streets of Belfast and Derry, but in the border towns of Strabane and Lifford, and smaller towns in all six counties. Republican extremists used the Inishowen peninsula as a refuge after committing some criminal act in County Derry, and arms were regularly ferried from Greencastle, to the sands at Eglinton, not far from Coleraine. All
RUC
barracks were protected by coils of barbed wire, army and police patrols wore flak jackets, and the centre of Belfast had to be entered via security gates. Friends wrote that in Letterkenny, Culdaff and Carndonagh an atmosphere of wary suspicion was palpable in pubs and hotels; furtive glances were exchanged, and visitors got a guarded, rather than enthusiastic, welcome; male footwear was scrutinised – a high shine might indicate a British soldier in civilian clothing.

Despite my uneasiness about the conflict, I wanted the children to have a long stay in Northern Ireland during the summer, because soon we would be tied to school or university terms for at least fifteen years. Fergus was not due for home leave until June, but even that was subject to postponement if the regional director in Brazzaville was minded to keep him in post awaiting the recruitment of a temporary project leader. In the end, I flew with the children in April via East African Airways from Nairobi to Frankfurt–London–Belfast. Seasoned travellers though they were, the children slept for almost twelve hours after we reached our house at Craigavad, next door to their indulgent grannie: if ever I did anything right, it was providing her with grandchildren, an outlet for the love that had been so long repressed.

Fergus joined us in June, and through an agency called Irish Aunts, we engaged a Donegal woman to help my mother look after the children for a week, while we visited Dublin. This was the longest break we had taken from full-time parenting, and I found it difficult to banish all feelings of guilt, though logic told me they were unfounded.

We rented a chalet near Malin for two weeks, and the children saw, for the first time, magnificent stretches of fine sand backed by high dunes down which they could toboggan. Towering Atlantic rollers broke relentlessly on Lagg strand, where their kite flew higher than ever before, and when the wind was chill, they could bathe in warm rock pools near the foot of the cliffs, from the top of which the view extended over Doagh Island and its ruined castle, towards Errigal and Muckish, and the promontories of Dunaff, Fanad and Horn Head, to the Rosses and Aranmore; Glashedy Island stood like a little cake near the mouth of Trawbreega Bay. The girls, who could just remember their year in the
US
, were impressed when told that only the Atlantic ocean divided them from Boston.

In one of my more insane fantasies I asked Johnnie McLaughlin, who owned the hotel in Malin, if he thought Glashedy could be bought; ever the optimist, he promised to look into it. But with his help, and that of Matt Doherty who owned the general store, we did buy two plots of land, one overlooking the harbour at Glengad on Lough Foyle, the other at Ineuran Bay near Malin Head. I went to great lengths to obtain planning approval from Lifford, eventually getting it for a one-storey house at Glengad, and for Ineuran ‘a structure of outstanding architectural merit with concessions to local tradition'. The former we sold to a solicitor whose wife had been born on Inishowen; the second I still own, but outline permission has long expired, and it would take a genius such as Frank Lloyd Wright, plus huge capital investment, to do credit to this site, which is little more than a rock pocket with a stupendous view. Some day one of our descendents may pitch a tent or caravan there, or more likely have a picnic and reflect on Grannie's many impulsive purchases.

Fergus took the children to visit his mother in Comber, County Down. She had survived a severe stroke some fifteen years earlier and was, he said, a sadly diminished version of the woman she once was. She still wrote a daily diary and regularly attended her church, but was in many ways childish, with an embarrassing tendency to play any piano that came into orbit. His sister, Elsie, a radiographer, devoted her life to her, ensuring that the old woman got such good care that she lived long enough to get a telegram from the queen, and a visit from Rinty Monaghan, the flyweight boxer, with whom she was photographed. Also living in the inharmoniously extended eighteenth-century farmhouse, were a much older brother, his young wife and only child, and another reclusive bachelor brother, Eric, who was a gifted artist. The children loved these visits, returning late in the evening covered in straw and dust, having spent much time messing around in the hayshed. To say the farm was running down was an understatement – it had long run down, and any income came from renting out many of the fertile acres that surrounded it. By all accounts, Fergus's father had been a reflective man, more interested in reading than in tilling the land: his life had been shattered by the death of their eldest son, Jack, from
TB
while at an agricultural college in County Tyrone in the late twenties. He felt that negligence had been involved and diagnosis delayed. The family had suffered during the depression from 1929 to the mid-thirties, and after the war, when many subsidies were available to farmers, he had not taken advantage of them. In consequence, the long rocky lane from the main road remains untarred to this day.