by Ruth Skrine
It is difficult for anyone who has not suffered from true vertigo to understand what it is like. Only recently I heard of an American soldier who had fought in Vietnam and seen much active service. He said that none of those experiences had instilled the same degree of terror as an attack of vertigo. I once asked Helen if it was like the self-induced dizziness when one had spun round and round as a child, or ridden on a roundabout. She said it was nothing like it; the disorientation was complete, with no idea where you were in space, in relation to the ground or sky. I suspect it induces such dislocation that the sufferer feels, at some level of the psyche, as if she or he is dying.
After a week or two Helen was still unable to walk. The punitive attitude of the consultant was offset by heart-warming compassion provided by Simon Latham, a paediatric registrar. I first met him while we were, for some reason, waiting on the ward. Another doctor was jeering at a young child who cried incessantly. Simon frowned at the doctor, picked the child up and carried her around, soothing her distress while continuing to look at charts and make decisions.
Each morning for several weeks Simon left home early to allow time to call at our house on his way to work. He knelt on the floor to encourage Helen to take her first steps. Helping her gain confidence was a slow process but he had endless patience. Gradually over a period of weeks she was well enough to return to school but was still suffering symptoms that made her so frightened that they sent for me on several occasions. As the staff waited for me to arrive, a male teacher would clasp her tightly in his arms and carry her up and down the playground. It is sad to think that the essential comfort of being held when one is terrified might be forbidden now, for fear that it would be misconstrued as abuse.
When Helen had recovered, we went together to Shepherd’s Bush market and bought a guinea pig for seven and sixpence. We called her Abbie. Her fur grew in rosettes, typical of her Abyssinian breed. Three days after she arrived she produced five of the most perfectly formed babies. Within an hour they were running around with their eyes open. Ralph named them after Carthaginian generals all beginning with H. It was typical of him to know the historical details of what was to me rather an obscure period of history. The unwieldy labels for such tiny creatures added to their charm.
Moppet, our cat, had come with us from the Isle of Wight but we were concerned about the main road that ran close to our house. Beyond it the railway embankment must have contained plenty of mice. Fearing the cat would venture across, and in the hope of curbing her hunting instincts, we decided to control her fertility. We opted for a contraceptive hormone injection, as none of us wanted to have her sterilised. The method had recently become available for animals but unfortunately the dose was still experimental. She conceived again before either her system or we were ready for another family. Healthy kittens keep their eyes shut for about ten days after they are born. When this litter was born they had their eyes open – with disastrous results. Because their eyelids had not formed properly the fur rubbed on their eyeballs, causing intense inflammation of the cornea.
We were due to travel abroad on holiday so we left Moppet and the kittens with an expensive but brilliant vet. He managed to save just one of them by performing several operations to create new lids with skin grafts. She grew into a charming cat. The pads of her paws were black and Ralph called her Siksika, one of the names the Native American Blackfeet call themselves. She was timid and never managed to catch anything bigger than a spider, but her pride when she brought us such a treasure was as great as that of the most proficient rat catcher.
My memories of work at that time seem blurred, while domestic details stand out more sharply. The blame that I had received for Helen’s vertigo concentrated my energies on trying to provide her with the stability and interests that I imagined a good mother would manage with automatic ease. However, from the beginning I found work in family planning clinics very absorbing. I was meeting a group of patients who were in the main fit and healthy but were in urgent need of medical help to control their fertility. I soon discovered that in this personal area of their lives the ideas and feelings of the patient and her partner were more important than the views of any professional. This is not to deny that the doctor had an important traditional role to play, especially with the comparatively new methods. We were trained to take detailed histories, always check the blood pressure and perform a pelvic examination before prescribing the pill. (Later there were many debates about the necessity for this procedure as it could deter women from taking the precautions so necessary to delay or space their children.) If there were some absolute contraindication to a method the doctor had a duty to refuse it, but where there was a relative risk this had to be weighed against the risks of pregnancy and discussed with the patient.
I quickly became fascinated by the challenge of remaining an authoritative doctor when it was necessary, while developing listening skills to try and understand the person in front of me. I had no idea that this body/mind approach was to become the central interest of my professional life.
For the moment I was immersed in my family. I still yearned for another baby but as well as accepting that I would never be a great hospital specialist I was beginning to realise that I might have to be content with only one child. A large room at the top of the three-storey house, one of those outside the walls of the prison that had been provided for us, made a good playroom. I filled it with a slide, Wendy house and various push and pull toys for any of Helen’s friends I could entice inside. I encouraged our friends, who were fond enough of Ralph to tolerate his silences, to visit as often as possible. I clung to these visits, and to our holidays, as times when he became more approachable and more interested in us.
Soon after arriving on the Isle of Wight we had gone to Sennen Cove in Cornwall with Dilla and Alan Roberton. For me it was one of the most enjoyable holidays we ever had as a family. Their daughter Jeanie was about nine and showed great tolerance as she played with the three-year-old Helen. Ralph came out of his shell and did more excursions with them than he would have done with us alone. We went to Kynance Cove. As the tide receded he was the first to explore a headland. He came running back.
‘Alan, Alan,’ he called, ‘come quickly.’
For a moment I thought he had found a dead body. I stood still and looked at Dilla as Alan sprinted after him out of sight.
‘Isn’t it wonderful? The most perfect bay I have ever seen, quite untouched by the foot of any human, animal or bird.’
Instinctively he had wanted to share his excitement with his male friend, but I was so glad to hear the happiness in his voice that I felt no jealousy.
Interspersed with our visits to Cornwall we went to France, often to Biarritz. In the sixties it had a faded Edwardian elegance and was not in the least fashionable. We first discovered the place when Helen was about four, after driving through France with no fixed idea of our destination. Later, when Jeanie was a teenager, we took the Robertons with us. On the way down we stopped at a lake in ‘Les Landes’, the wide expanse of pine forests in southwest France. Jeanie and I had sailing lessons conducted in Old French. Some of the commands still vibrate in my head (I don’t know how to spell the words) along with beignets abricot, the call of the doughnut sellers on the Biarritz beach.
Once Helen had learnt to swim, on holiday in Madeira where there was a wonderful sea water pool, we could return to the inland waterways, spending a week travelling down the Thames in a camping punt. At the school in Holland Park she had made great friends with Lucy Crowther, the youngest daughter of an editor at the British Medical Journal. Lucy came with us on the river. That trip took place soon after Helen’s vestibular neuronitis and the peace was healing for both of us. The two girls sat in the bow of the boat catching leaves and twigs and ‘sending them home’ to the bank while Ralph punted and I just lay on the cushions in the middle.
Almost despite myself, between these holidays I was becoming more interested in family planning work. It must be difficult f
or anyone in the twenty-first century, with sexual matters constantly in the media, to imagine the degree of prejudice that had to be overcome both among the general public and the medical profession. But at about this time a number of pioneering doctors, mainly women, were starting domiciliary services in big cities, including Dr Libby Wilson in Sheffield and then Glasgow. Anyone interested in this vital work should read her memoir, Sex on the Rates.
I was not one of those medical pioneers who took up the fight, although I admired them enormously. In any venture there are those spirits who forge the new trail, revelling in the fight against prejudice and entrenched ideas. Others follow who consolidate their vision. Both in timing and temperament I was one of the latter.
During this time, a group of family planning doctors were meeting with Dr Tom Main to discuss the psychological influences on contraceptive choice, and the sexual difficulties that often presented during the consultations. Looking back I cannot understand why I was not among them. Tom, who had been analysed by Michael Balint and became a close colleague, had been present when I was interviewed for the GP group eight or nine years previously when we were living in London. At that time they had considered the ‘small but essential change in the doctor’, necessary for the development of a more psychological approach, took at least two or three years. They had been worried that the single year I was to be in London would only unsettle me. ‘Is half a loaf for a starving woman more useful than none at all?’ they had asked each other, in my hearing. In the end I had been accepted on the understanding that I might be available to join another seminar at some later date. Yet here I was back in London, making no move in that direction. Perhaps I was too consumed by the need to be a perfect mother and wife, and to maintain what social contacts we had, to be able to face the emotional demands of such training.
In 1968 Ralph heard he had been promoted from Assistant Governor to Governor class three, and was to be posted back to Pollington. As far as I know he was the only person in the service to be sent to that isolated spot for a second term. He had to start before our accommodation was ready and wrote to explain that the old hut had been pulled down and a purpose-built detached house allocated to us. Being modern, the rooms were small. The large furniture we had acquired for the three-storey house at Wormwood Scrubs, mainly from my grandparents, would have to be severely pruned. Helen and I were forced to stay on in London for several months and we spent Christmas that year with Helen’s friend Lucy and her hospitable family, who have remained good friends.
I viewed the prospect of returning to Pollington with some trepidation, knowing it would be difficult to find work that would dovetail with my home life. Neither did I look forward to being ‘the governor’s wife’. Dilla filled the role with great aplomb, gracious and friendly at prison functions, acting as a figurehead and often organising the officers’ wives club in the places they served. Ralph was extremely fond of her but in general, having met army wives who talked of ‘my regiment’, he was against what he saw as women who interfered. More importantly, times were changing and such things could be seen as patronising.
I knew I would be no good in such a role. I was still shy at parties, remaining glued to the wall at the mercy of anyone who approached me. The ability to move from one group to another has come to me very late in life, since my analysis, and I still revel in the freedom, enjoying and even looking forward to social functions in a way I never did before.
During that second stay in rural Yorkshire the village school played an important part in our lives. I was slightly ashamed when Helen became something of a teacher’s pet but I am deeply grateful for the attention and support she got from the headmaster and his wife. They helped her to regain confidence after her vertigo. She was able to ride her bike to and from school and quickly made friends. It was a small community with some children from the village and the rest from the staff at the camp.
In addition to a few infant welfare and school clinics that I took on with no enthusiasm, I got myself appointed to a couple of family planning clinics a week. If I was not home in time to greet Helen from school one of the other wives took her in. This commitment to work as a doctor provided an acceptable excuse for me to refuse to run the wives’ club or even be their chairman. Luckily the wife of the chief officer was happy to take my place.
As the months passed some of the wives came to me with their worries. One knocked on my door in deep distress. I led her into the sitting room. Luckily I was alone in the house as Ralph was at work and Helen at school.
‘My father has just been diagnosed with cancer,’ she said as tears ran down her cheeks.
I said how sorry I was, and wondered what on earth I could do to help and whether I should make the proverbial cup of tea. In fact I just sat and let her talk in her own time.
After a bit she went on, ‘No one in my family has had cancer. What will happen?’
‘What is it you are especially afraid of?’ I asked, sensing that she needed to talk more than listen.
‘I can’t bear him to suffer. You see, ever since I was little we have been very close.’
She went on to tell me about times when her mother had been ill and she and her father had supported each other. ‘Will he come home to die? I don’t know if I could nurse him, I’m not good at that sort of thing. Or will they keep him in hospital? I don’t know what will happen,’ she repeated.
She was comforted by an opportunity to discuss the possible scenarios and the knowledge that he would be given whatever painkillers he needed. I was surprised to find that I did have enough experience to provide at least some answers – but also to realise that the listening skills I was beginning to develop could be of use. It was far more important for her to share her fears than for me to attempt to offer some immediate panacea in a situation where there were no easy answers.
Perhaps a more useful thing I did on the camp was to start a playgroup. Jo Matthews, a friend and a leading light in the Preschool Playgroup Association (PPA), came to stay for a few days and gave a talk, suggesting that several mothers should take turns to run the group. The PPA considered the involvement of parents most important and I was grateful for all the help I could get, having no specific qualifications for the job.
Ralph was again working three weekends out of four so that I was left to entertain Helen by myself. I remember how my heart sank each Saturday morning when my nine-year-old asked brightly, ‘What are we doing today?’ She presumed I would have a plan. We walked a lot in the flat countryside, made small trips into the neighbouring village of Snaith and sometimes into Goole. Even the names now sound bleak and distant, yet I don’t remember feeling unhappy. I had still not managed to conceive again but the sadness was fading to a distant ache. During much of my early marriage I hankered after my parents’ lifestyle, secretly wondering why I had not married a man like my father with practical hands and a sunny temperament. Now I was changing, embarking belatedly on the process of learning to be myself. I could even feel some gratitude to the mother I had always found so difficult. Her insistence that I enter a profession, especially one where I could earn a reasonable salary in return for part-time work, provided me with flexible options. The knowledge that I could return to a more active medical life when I was ready helped me to tolerate and even to enjoy the confines of domestic life that might irk a professional woman of today.
Although the doctor who had blamed me for Helen’s vertigo prompted much of my commitment to my home, I was also fulfilling a need in myself. Over the years I have found that the line between coping and not coping with the inherent tension between profession and home is very fine. At Hewell Grange, during the first three years of Helen’s life, I was happy with two surgeries a week but over-stretched when I tried three. Later the breaking point was between seven and eight sessions. My hope is that society is developing in such a way that every woman and man can experience the same freedom of choice that was available to me. Then each individual could discover the pattern best suited to
her or his personality and life situation.
Many men in the modern world try to take their share of domestic chores but I still meet women who are carrying a heavy load. My heart goes out to all those who are expected and expect themselves to compete with men without the support of an extended family or the cheap and reliable help that was available in the past.
11
Freedom to Choose
The decision about Helen’s future education, which had loomed in the distance, was thrown into sharp focus when Ralph heard he was to be moved to the prison training college in Wakefield. She was not yet eleven and I had to face the prospect of sending her away to school a year earlier than expected.
Ralph started to board at his prep school, Beaudesert Park in Gloucestershire, at the age of seven. He had been happier there than at home, where he was a solitary and rather lonely little boy. He eagerly awaited the start of each term. I was surprised to hear that copies of a book containing 500 facts were among the boys’ most treasured possessions. They were carried around and used by the boys to test each other’s knowledge. Ralph excelled at competitive regurgitation and believed he acquired more information during his years at that school than at any other time in his life. He was convinced that Helen would enjoy life in a boarding school. I was not so sure. I was not unhappy at St Felix but felt I learned little and had longed for the end of every term. But I was afraid that Helen, as an only child, would suffer from a mother who was too clinging if she remained at home. She would also have had to start at a new school and make new friends every few years. In the event she was pleased to leave home to board at Badminton girls’ school in Bristol.