BABY, HOUSE and JOB!

By about July /August 1979 Three Major things were happening in our Life!

Baby, House & Job!

Firstly Susan was Pregnant, the baby was due March 1980, Nathan was'nt quite one yet, so two small Babies together , anyway the new Baby was planned!

Our One Bedroomed place in a shared House, was alright but as you can imagine, very cramped, but as I said in previous post we got on well with a couple of different people, one being the unofficial Person in Charge of the House, Shirley was her name, the other Person was the Head Council Woman in Charge of our House, a Woman by the name of Phyllis Flaxman, who I mentioned her in a previous Post!

Now Mrs Flaxman had said she had a Landlady Friend who was soon having a Property empty, & would we be interested in a Move!

Of course we said "Yes" to her, and now just had to wait for news on the possible move!

The Third about to happen was concerning my Job, I had just found out I had Passed my Catering Exams, I had taken them about May / June earlier that year!

In the Exams I took to become a Fully Qualfied Chef, you had Three Levels of Pass,

1. Distinction 2. Credit 3. Pass

I got a "PASS"...................... so not the Best Brains!

But I could Handle working under Pressure in a Hot Steamy Kitchen as good as most, & thats what really mattered, A person can have as many Qualifications as he wants, but when it comes to the Nitty Gritty of Hard Work in a under pressure situation of a Hot Kitchen, can he handle it!

& the answer in most cases was................ "NO"

So with the Passing of my Final Exams, We had to make our Minds up what was I going to do for a Job!

I definately knew I was finishing with being a Chef, seems strange after doing 4 Years at College on day release from Work and 1 year when at School (at college) that I finally passed all my Exams and the first I do when finally being a Qualfied Chef, was Leave the Trade!

But when I started 5 years previous I was a single man, now I was Married with a Kid & one on the way, Cooking was not a Married Man's Job!

Too many Long Hours and too many differing Split Shifts!

So I decided to either try to become a Butcher or a Baker, so I set about writing off loads of letters to different Butcher's & Bakery's in my Home Town!

NATHAN PULLS THROUGH!

Nathan had the Operation, He had made it through! We were only allowed a few minutes with him, he was trussed up like a Chicken!

He had bandage ties on his arms and legs to either side of his Cot, to keep him still, he also had a Plaster of Paris cast on his head, to keep his tubes in place!

We were only allowed to feed him at certain times and that was through the tubes with a syringe type tube!

The Doctor's decided he could not go home until he reached his Birth weight again, which was 6lb 13ozs, he had gone down to 5lb 2ozs with the illness!

Has I have said in previous posts, some of happenings from back then are hard to remember, especialy times & dates, so my Wife Susan often tells me what she can remember, and that is more than I remember!

Nathan made a slow and steady progress over the next couple of weeks!

But more aggrevation over our Living Arrangements were about to take another turn!

ITS A BOY!......."NATHAN"

So after nearly 10 months Susan finally had the baby, and it was a Boy!

But it quickly became clear all was not well with the Baby, in them days the Mother's stayed in the Hospital for about 10 days, after the Birth!

We soon found out after the birth, he was not keeping his feed down, he seemed to be bringing it all back up at a great force, all over who was ever feeding him or the floor!

This went on for a few days and then the Doctor's started carring out Tests on the Baby , to see what was wrong with him!

After about a week his weight had gone down from 6lb 13 ozs at Birth to 5lb 2 ozs, after 8 days the Doctor's found out he had an Illness called Pyloric Stenosis (the narrowing of the opening from the stomach to the intestines) this was what was causing the severe vomitting.

It was quickly decided they had to operate as soon as possible on our Son, as it turned out our Son was the youngest Baby to have this Illness in our Area!

Susan had already picked a name for our son before the Birth, he was going to be called "Nathan" at that time, we had never heard of anybody else by this name.

So after days of worrying for both of us, on Monday 11th September 1978, we had to have Nathan Christened in the Hospital because there was a fair chance he would not get over this illness! we were told he has a 70/30 chance of Survival, and the 30% was on our side of survival!

Straight after the Christening, Nathan had to have his operation, we were told the surgeon performing the Operation was on the Telephone to Great Ormond Street Hospital surgeon's in London, as he had not performed this Operation before on such a small infant and needed guidance!

The operation seemed to take an age, but eventually we heard that the Operation had been completed, but "Nathan" was "touch & go" whether he would pull through!

The picture was taken after the operation, Nathan had tubes coming out of his stomach and Head, he had also both sides of his head shaved, where the tubes went!

SEPTEMBER 3rd 1978, We became Parents

These pictures were taken last week of outside the Hospital where Susan had our Son,
and the middle picture is the actual room where they both were for the Birth, the
Hospital is now closed!


I remember things were going well at work and Susan was doing fine (pregnancy wise) it was now exactly 6 weeks after we got Married, we went to bed that night on the 2nd September 1978 and everything was O.K, Then about 3 am on that Sunday Morning, Susan's water's broke!

I thought Susan had too much too drink the night before! lol

Anyway the Ambulance was'nt called until about 7am the next morning, and by about 8am, we were off to the Hospital.

I was told after about an Hour or so, to go off to work as nothing would be happening for "Hours yet"

At about 11.30 am I was getting ready for Sunday Lunch at Work, when a Phone call came through for me to get to the Hospital as things were about to happen!

As I went to the Hospital with Susan earlier that day in the ambulance, I didnt have my Bike with me, so I had to get to the Hospital somehow!

Luckily there was a Bus that ran all the way from my Work to the Hospital, I can remember to this day the funny feeling of fear I had all the way there , which was about 3 miles away, in total!

I finally got to the Hospital about 12.30pm, I remember both of us being "very nervous" as we were both still teenager's ourselves, and back then in 1978, we were classed as "too young to have Kids"

Anyway after hours of waiting and tension in Susan's room and the waiting room, things were about to happen! (I remember there was 2 other blokes in the waiting room, and both of them looked older enough to be my father!).

I had to wear a big white coat and green trouser's in the Delivery Room, and I also remember the Doctor had big White Wellington Boots on, and after speaking to Susan while writing this Post up, she reminded me that I had a pair of the big White Welly's on as well!
I cant remember there being too much Mud about in the Delivery Room!

After which seemed an eternity of pushing, shoving and sweating bucket loads for both of us, at 15.55pm on Sunday 3rd September 1978, our Son was BORN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What a relief! that was probably the first time in public I cried!

But Problems were on the horizon for me and susan concerning our New Baby.

END OF SUMMERTIME 1978!

These pictures were taken around late 1977 or
early 1978!

By about August of 1978, we had been offered a move to Susan's Nanny's house at the opposite end of Town to where we had been living at my Nanny's! We jumped at the chance, as Susan was about 1 month away from having the baby!

I also worked at the opposite end of Town from where we were living, so to get to work I had to cycle right along the length of the Seafront, what was about 2/3 miles distance, and at that period of time I was working Split Shifts all the time, I believe it was 10 till 2 during the day and back at night 5.30 till 9.30 , this compared to most Hotels at that time, was an early finish at Night!

I always remember during the day I could cycle along the seafront, but at night time it was a different matter! with the Seafront area packed with people, I forget how many times somebody (a Lout in a gang) would throw something at me or try to push me off the bike! so the ride home was through to Town Centre, and that was nearly as bad, passing the Pubs etc, but most nights I was with one of the other Chefs, so when you were in pairs, mostly I got home without any bother!

Our Home Life at Susan's Nanny's was'nt very good! We always had the feeling of "them going through our belongings when we were out"

Anyway everything in our Life was about to change again, but this time forever!

PREGNANT, MARRIAGE AND A LET DOWN!

We were now into Spring time in 1978, Dates I must admit are a bit vague around this time, as we had alot of things happening around this time!

As Susan was Pregnant and due Early September, we had alot of things to sort out "where to live" "marriage" and of course our "Baby"

We arranged to get Married in July, nowadays it seems nobody gets Married, but just live together!, but back then, it was completely different, although we had already talked about Marriage, the event of Susan being Pregnant, speeded everything up!

Both Families were not Happy, to say the least! my Mum didnt like Susan, my Dad was alright to her, Susan thought the same of both of them!
I didnt like Susan's Dad, but did like her Mum, and basically that's how it was back then, and how it has been for most of our lives!

Susan's Mum was the only one, that was always alright to us!

It was also around this time that we found out, that the Promised Rented Property we had hoped to move into, fell through!

So now we had no where to live, Susan was about 5/6 months Pregnant and we were getting Married in about 2 month's time!

Could things get any WORSE!