Remembering - and celebrating

Forty years after I experienced the labour suite in Redlands Hospital for Women in Glasgow, we were eating cake and drinking - bubbly, whisky - in Edinburgh as my #1 son celebrated his 40th birthday with family and friends. It seemed appropriate that the celebrations that involved us were on the Saturday evening - he was born at 1.45am so the evening was quite definitely the bit that sticks in my memory!

Childbirth then was somewhat different from what I've witnessed of my grandchildren's births. Not quite Call the Midwife - but in 1974 the fashion was for women to be induced on their Due Date (you could hear the capitals, I swear) and no quibbling allowed. If the mother wasn't quite ready, tough. It just went on a bit. And so, forty years before this photo was taken, I'd already been in labour for 12 hours or so. My husband had gone home to bed (really - he wasn't encouraged to stay) and my world had contracted to a pethidine-induced haze. At that time, a vision of this jolly party might have seemed like Nirvana.

And it was a jolly party, and the birthday boy pronounced himself well pleased. And that's his boys waiting to blow out his candle ...