The husband of a very good friend died recently, and Stew and I decided to attend his funeral in the Scottish Borders. My kind brother Robbie, who was also going with Mary, his wonderful wife, offered to give us a lift to Scotland from the south of England, which made the whole thing so much easier.
It reminded me of another occasion forty two years ago, when he and his car came to our rescue. I had won the prize of a weekend for two in the Mediterranean in the Guardian competition in 1971. I was pregnant with Jae at the time, and for some long forgotten reason, we decided to take the holiday in March 1972, when I was 29 weeks pregnant. At that time, the airlines had a rule that no-one was allowed to fly during the ten weeks preceding the expected date of delivery. However, we were just off for the weekend, so no problem, or so we thought. We chose to go to Sorrento on the Amalfi coast and were enormously excited, never before having had a holiday together anywhere more exotic than the weekend honeymoon we had enjoyed in Oban.
We were on the plane, when Stew started to complain of feeling unwell. I was my usual brisk self with him, telling him that everyone feels a bit odd in a plane.
However, he started to get what looked like blisters on his face, and by the time we arrived in the hotel, even I had to agree that something was wrong with him. I said it looked a bit like chicken pox. That reminded Stew that a week or so previously, he had taken a group of students, who were studying housing policy, to visit some homes in Salford: he was a lecturer at Manchester University at the time. While there, they had gone into a house where they saw a woman dabbing calamine lotion on to a naked child, who was covered in chicken pox. So we were pretty sure that must be what was ailing Stew, but realised that if we told anyone, that we could find ourselves stuck in Italy for quite some time, and that would mean I would be too pregnant to fly home!
We had absolutely no savings and no insurance. There was nothing for it but to pretend everything was alright and fly home as planned, at the end of the weekend – probably spreading illness throughout the area and to those on the flight! Stewart girded his loins and did the trip up Vesuvias, a bus tour to Amalfi and a walk round Pompeii and we got the plane back. The plane landed in London and the plan was to return to Manchester by train: but Stewart could barely stand upright. I contacted his uncle and aunt in Harrow and they agreed that we could go there. Stew barely made it through the door before collapsing. He stayed in bed there for several days and I realised there was no way he could return home to Manchester by public transport.
My brother Robbie – only 21 at the time – rose to the occasion. He showed himself to be a star by picking us up in his car in Harrow and driving us all the way home to Manchester. We were so grateful to get safely home. Stew was off work ill for almost a month.
So that was the first occasion on which Jae and I were on the Amalfi coast. We are off there again soon to do some walking training in readiness for the Kili trip. Fingers crossed for a less stressful visit!
