Now, in early February 1973 I was packing my bags to go to St Kitts. All I knew of it apart from the Post-Recruitment 'bumph' was from an immigrant friend who had left there years previously during that period of migration by sea to the UK after the War, in which I had grown up in south London, together with a few details given on a general ‘Briefing Course’ to those going to work in the Caribbean, or Central or South America, that had been held over a few days at an ancient castle in the South of England, which had been built four hundred years before the first Europeans went to the Caribbean, and long before the infamous ‘trade-links’ between Africa and the region were established.
This was fuelled by early memories of cricket matches attended at the Kennington Oval, and in 1950 watching 'The West Indies' play the MCC at a 'local' match, and at that match, being able to get the great Learie Constantine - who happened also to write the cricket coaching 'strip' in my weekly boy's paper - to autograph my bat, there were Frank Worrell, Weekes and Walcott; that famous pair of bowlers Ramadhin and Valentine and... so the memory fades, giving way to memories of a polyphonic canned assortment of Steel-Band sounds, Harry Belafonte, Blue-Beat, and those 'white calypsonians' (from Denmark) 'Nina and Frederick'. Then later, becoming engrossed in reading Ian Fleming's Bond novels, the author being a resident of Jamaica.
The loud, colourful, happy people in the markets of South London, living near and working at the Hospitals where later, I too lived and worked early in my medical career, and the sad, cold, unhappy people, in their incongruous straw-hats and cotton dresses, sitting on sad piles of boxed luggage at wintry London's Victoria Station fresh on arrival from Southampton off the transatlantic steamers and about to start a brave new life in the 'Land of Hope and Glory', just as I was off to play for a while in the Austrian snows.
Then of course, we had Bananas. Not the dried tough strips that had arrived during the war in American Food-parcels but the ‘real ones’ yellow and plump, beloved by all English children (all that is except my sister, who, denying their name and mistrusting them implicitly, still wanted the war-time variety which had rapidly disappeared from others' memories once these magical, handy, ‘unzippable’ ones started arriving in the shops, with little labels stuck on them like ‘Fyffes’ and ‘Geest’.
There were bold Postage Stamps from Barbados with ‘Britannia’ riding the sea-horse waves in a chariot, not of fire but of water; and Brown Sugar, usually referred to as ‘Demerara’ so not really West-Indian at all; remembered (but hardly relevant to me at the time) news-coverage of the setting up of a ‘West-Indies Federation’, and news of a revolt in an island called Anguilla, to which English Police had been sent, including coincidentally a footballing friend from my days of working and playing rugby in the south-west of England, whence had sailed such men as Drake, Morgan, Rodney and Nelson in days of old to a Caribbean, mingled in my melting-pot of memory and imagination with tales such as R.L Stevenson’s ‘Treasure Island’ full of adventure in a strange climate and with the stuff of which dreams are made.
So, dreams became reality, leaving Heathrow London one cold wet February morning in 1973 to arrive in a hot dry waterless Antigua a few hours later - why ever would Princess Margaret have wished to honeymoon in such an arid spot? - then seeing the LIAT flight to St Kitts leave immediately upon our arrival, so being denied my first footfall there until the following morning.
A morning that started cool with blue skies and colourful flowers around - Paradise? Only to become later, hot and dazzling as the sun rose higher over the palms and strange birds dived for fish in the waters off Basseterre, while yet stranger birds soared silently, high overhead, scanning the horizons from age to age whence they had viewed the comings and goings of men down here in the sandy soil which was now to become my home, at least for two or perhaps for as long as three years.
How strange they seemed, the common 'Boobys' and the ubiquitous 'Frigate Birds' those first days and the Sun was so hot.......
'The Joseph N. France General Hospital' - unusual name -'Surgeon Specialist to St Christopher, Nevis and....but careful now!....... Anguilla' - 'quelle appellation!' Not much evidence of the French though, except for the names so far. Two days to orientate - shouldn't it be occidentate 'here' in the West? - then to work.
The Hospital was cool, sometimes; shady, sometimes; quiet, sometimes; one's colleagues were few, three others on staff, an MO attached to the outpatients at times, and most important of all to the Surgeon, the Anaesthetist on call at any time, and here on operating days which became longer and longer in the one operating theatre.
The Nurses were attractive, keen and smart, but communications in our `common tongue' were at times difficult while patients' symptoms were described in `terms' with which one had to come to `terms' indeed.
But it didn't rain, so we didn't get wet and by July, people started to talk of 'This awful Drought', though, being a new-comer, I was none the wiser.
Work progressed, it was never done, but there were few accidents on the roads. They cut the Cane (trains and tractors sometimes injured people - badly); and during the driest weather that first year I went on a guided hike to ‘The Crater’ with local friends, and came to know this Island `home' a little more each day.
Then it happened; We ran out of gauze, we ran out of Anaesthetic-gas, we ran out of steam, and finally, it all stopped.........for Cricket!
The beginning of August it rained and we all got wet. The roof dripped a steady supply to utensils of all sorts, a few lucky potted-plants and some unlucky patients.
Later in August there was a Hurricane Alert that became a Hurricane warning! Everyone (almost) was sent home. The socialites held a ‘Hurricane Watch’ party at the beach, facing NE and I was convinced I saw an approaching hurricane as a cloud on the horizon. But no, the hurricane never came, the ‘Sunday lime’ ended and everyone went home. Storm passed, the patients - most of them - came back. Many took their release as a benefit and were not seen again. Storm passed, and we returned unscathed to 'busy-ness as usual'.
In September Mary arrived from UK by sea, a passenger aboard a Van Ommeren Line Freighter out of Tilbury, England, via Grenada, St Lucia and Antigua. She was accompanied by her German-Shepherd dog, Bruce, in a sea-kennel, and our home at ‘Shirley House’ was all set.
The island socialites took to Mary’s arrival with enthusiasm. Soon she was the highlight at any social function at which there happened to be a piano, and she was called upon to entertain and to give piano recitals frequently. At one of these formal occasions, held in the Sugar Factory Social Centre, she was ‘taken on’ by the Chief Medical Officer, a Scotsman., previously retired from his post in Northern Ireland, who suddenly collapsed and died in the middle of his own piano performance. A few months later the Medical Specialist, another retired Scotsman had a fatal heart attack in the sea whilst on his accustomed Sunday morning swim at the beach.
By Christmas, Mary declared that ‘all this social-life’ was not conducive to the quiet contemplative live to which ‘we’ aspired and declared an end to it. Though she continued to visit the hospital patients periodically with messages of comfort.
`Carnival' was Dr. Sebastian's home on New Year's Day, Premier Robert Bradshaw 'holding court' and serving champagne in the kitchen, whilst the whole of the populace it seemed paraded through the house.
Years passed. Three Medical Colleagues had died tragically and two Premiers, Robert Bradshaw and Paul Southwell had also passed away before the fullness of their labours had been realized. The cycle of struggle continued.
The Hospital roof was fixed, and refixed, and usually it stopped raining.
Much of the surgical work was concerned with common problems particularly the management of chronic leg ulcers of indeterminate aetiology, and surgical conditions related to Diabetes, and the `water-works'. Accidents and emergencies commonly were associated with `Crop' or with alcohol and domestic strife. The waiting list for Elective Surgery increased by one hundred each year - simply a case of two patients per week being added over and above those being taken off.
The tide turned, when in early 1979 an officious lady appeared at the Hospital. She was from the Government's Overseas Development Agency in London and informed me that I was 'Required to take mandatory leave back in UK'.
The end of my sixth year coincided with Mary's first hip-replacement surgery, arranged with Bill Macdonald, a visiting colleague from Montana. Unfortunately' in spite of successful surgery, Mary developed Hepatitis B following the blood transfusion and her convalescence extended the time frame another six months.
On Whit Monday, 1979 another tragedy occurred when, following a beach-barbeque on Nevis, a small plane-load of expatriates over from St Kitts were lost when the plane crashed soon after take-off. Among them was my young Medical colleague, another Scotsman - the third - he, who had replaced the older physician who'd suffered a heart-attack and drowned back in 1974.
Finally, after six and a half years, there were six hundred and fifty patients awaiting elective surgery. It was indeed like trying to hold back the tide, an impossible situation under the circumstances and in August, Mary and I finally returned to UK.
I had been 'Off Island' just once, for a night, in six and a half years. No doubt 'The Administrators' in London thought I was in danger of 'Going Native', as the Victorians and Edwardians would have said.