Birth lift

Ma and Dad told me I was nearly born in the lift. I am not sure of the whole story, but evidently she was rushed up to the delivery room and I was nearly born during that rush.
That's me, always in a hurry to get places, not always happy to be there when I arrive!

Wrong colour, wrong country

In South Africa during the Apartheid years, I saw many unjust and barbaric acts.
One sticks in my mind very clearly, maybe because I was only about 8 years old.
We had the gardener/general helper living behind our house in a room (as they did in those days) and his wife arrived one night to say she was in labour.
He called Ma and I went with her and watched this brave woman giving birth (squatting on a cement floor and catching her baby as it dropped out), with Ma cutting the cord and helping her.
Then Ma rang the ambulance service to fetch her and take her to hospital.
They refused, saying that she was not 'registered' to be on our property, as she wasn't our servant, and also that they'd ring the police to remove her as she was illegally visiting.
This poor woman was fetched by a friend in the dead of night and taken away ( heaven knows to where). We never saw them again.
I think my hatred for this inhumane treatment of another human being was born that night, resulting in me emmigrating to England 30 years later to escape the tyranny.

Born 17 months later

My brother, Ian, was born only 17 months after me (July 1949), so I really didn't have enough time to be the 'baby' of the family. My father worked night shifts, as an usher at the local Doornfontein Bioscope and my mother worked all day as a bookkeeper (she was the breadwinner and never let him forget it!).

Don't know when they found the time to make us kids. I was very jealous of Ian, and one day I tossed him out of his pram. I am sure I got a good hiding for that, but can't remember. I do remember the jealousy though, as it surfaced many times in my childhood.