Hi Sandra,

Happy for you to use this memory if useful.  Bearing in mind that two people remembering the same thing are unlikely to remember the same details.  I know the story as Dad related it to me as a child - there may well have been bits that he left out ... or it may be that his memory slowed down over the years and the story as I remember is closer to what happened.  Or that the truth lies somewhere in between.  Anyway, this is what he told me and what I have believed all my life.  

It is strange that Dad never mentioned again any kind of pre-knowledge of place, ie the Lathliefs home - well, not to me anyway, but he had me spellbound as a child when he told me this story - and more than once!

Susan  xxx

*********************************************************************************** 

“On first arriving in Cape Town, (1949) we stayed for a while with somebody who had a garden with almost white sand.  I had never seen a garden like this before, and still remember Dad taking me around it and showing off the plants to me.  I was recently out of nappies at this point, and just wearing pants which I seem to remember felt very odd.  I don't know where this was or how long we lived there.

 By the time Mom was pregnant with Sandra we were living in 6 Gosport House - but Mom had another pregnancy prior to that one.  I am not sure of the timeline but she must have fallen pregnant very quickly after we got to Cape Town.  She was carrying twin boys and was fairly advanced in her pregnancy when she miscarried.

 The story was that we were out for the day and in a playground somewhere.  Mom was delicately balanced on the edge of a swing, with one foot on the ground, when I thought it was a good idea to push the swing and give her a ride.  It wasn't, and she fell forward onto her hands and must have started to miscarry later than day.  Mom and Dad were very young and inexperienced, and instead of going to hospital emergency (or at least a hospital in those days) they called on Dr Rauch to come to the house.  I have no memory of this bit, but apparently he arrived just in time to deliver two little boys very prematurely.  They may have survived if they had been born in hospital, but had no chance otherwise.

 I do remember that Mom disappeared for a while, and Dad struggled to cope with me on his own.  I must have been somewhere during the day - no memory of this - but was with him in the evening when he made supper for us both, and put me to bed.  (Incidentally, this gave me a 40-year hatred of sausages.  He used to "cook" them - black on the outside and raw inside, and promised me a hiding if I didn't eat them.  Some kindly neighbour interfered with this one evening, and gave us something else to eat, and it was many years before I could face another sausage, and realised they didn't have to be pink and black.)

 Mom came home some time later.  A week? A fortnight?  I have no idea, although it seemed like forever.  She was very distant and now I know was suffering from shock.  They would have been advised to fall pregnant again very quickly, as that used to be the cure-all for lost pregnancies.  

 She did become pregnant again, and considering the timeline for our arrival in Cape Town and Sandra's birth, it can't have been much later.  I do know that this was a difficult pregnancy.  Mom was sick a lot, surely morning sickness. She also cried and shouted at Dad, who was very gentle with her.  This would be normal behaviour, considering she was probably worried about losing this baby too.  I have a bright memory of being in the street with her when she started to vomit, lost her footing and sat with her feet in the gutter, vomiting.  I was patting her back in a futile manner as a young child would do, when some woman came to her front door and made some nasty sneering remark about Mom being drunk.  I jumped to her defence, telling the woman that Mom was "getting a baby and was sick".  She must have got the message, as she came out with a cup of water for Mom.

 As we know, she delivered Sandra after an apparently long and difficult childbirth.  There was a caul over the baby's face when Mom first saw it, and she screamed in terror, thinking the child only had half a face.  According to the story as I was told it, the doctor slapped her softly (to stop her hysteria!) and then gently removed the caul, leaving Sandra's perfect little face underneath.  Mom told both Dad and I more than once that she fell in love with Sandra at that moment.

 Dad and I had been in the waiting room with a large bunch of carnations.  To this day, the smell of real carnations brings back the memory of the seeming months that we waited for the new baby to arrive.  I remember when Dad and I were finally allowed into the delivery room, with an almost unrecognisable, tired Mom and a tiny baby in her arms.  Dad introduced me to my new little sister, and told me that I was to look after her for her whole life, and I gave him my sacred promise to do that.  He was laughing and crying at the same time; Mom was crying, and I was aware that this was a turning point in our family life.   Ten days later, Mom returned to Gosport House with baby Sandra Ellen.

 One more point on Sandra's name.  Some time before her birth, when names for the new baby were still under discussion (not knowing if it would be male or female at the time of course) the name SANdra came up (with a flat A).  Probably as a joke, Mom and Dad asked me, aged four, what I thought of the name if it was a baby girl.  Apparently I was vehement that this would NOT do, shaking my head.  Probably smiling to each other, they asked what name I would prefer, and I gave the same name with the different pronunciation that we have mainly used in the family - the longer drawn out first syllable:  Saandra. Mom and Dad both nodded and agreed - if it was a girl, that would be her name - a more special one!

 Enough for today.

 Hope this helps!   

 Love you always. 

 Susan xxx 

Written by my sister, Susan Ormrod, March 2021.