In Memoriam: Judy's Birth

27 November 1959

November in Tripura was always lovely. Fine, warm days and clear cool nights. Little wind. This photo of a village scene sums it up.

It was an exciting week. The baby was due, and I was scheduled to travel to Calcutta to sit my final Bengali exams. Audrey seemed to have boundless energy, inspite of being very pregnant.

On that afternoon we strolled around the mission compound, watching the children from St Paul's School playing volleyball or getting ready for their evening meal, talking to some, and chatting with our colleagues, both Indian and New Zealanders.

Late afternoon Audrey reported a few twinges which felt like contractions and we knew that there was a possibility the baby was on the way.

Judy did not take long to arrive. By mid-evening the operating theatre at the mission hospital was set up ready, with our medical colleague Laurence Sanson in attendance. Assisting him were two nurses, one New Zealander, and one Indian, while Laurence's wife, Heather, and nurse Olwyn Kemp, were standing by at the Sansons' home just down the path, to look after mother and baby once the birth was over.

As there was no electricity supply as far out of town as our mission station, the theatre was lit by a couple of pressure kerosene lanterns. My job was to make sure they were kept pumped up, as well as filling the expectant husband's role of general encourager and wiper of sweating brows. I sat on a stool by Audrey's head, well out of the way of the experts.

It seemed no time at all before we heard the baby's first cries. She was born just before midnight on 27 November, and soon afterwards Laurence and I carried Audrey on a stretcher to his home and the room that had been got ready for us. Olwyn Kemp came along carrying the newborn.

Here is Judy at two days old.