Was there anything unusual about your birth?

The story I hear about when I was born was that, some two weeks before I was ‘due’ my dear Mum had some bleeding and was whistled off to Rottenrow Hospital in Glasgow with the diagnosis of a placental abruption. The Hospital at the time was the Glasgow Royal Maternity Hospital, an old established public hospital. 1946 was before the advent of the National Health Service in the UK and it was the norm for mothers either to deliver at home, or, if you could afford it, to be delivered in a private Nursing Home.

Only those who could not afford this, or who had complications requiring more intervention, went to the public hospital. Sheila had been born in 1943 at the Millbrae Nursing Home near our home in Langside in Glasgow, and the plan was that I should also be born there. With the ‘crisis’ and the sudden change of plans, Dad lost his deposit on the Nursing Home bed, which he never let me forget! So, I was born some few days later after Mum had been on bedrest.

Apparently it was not an easy delivery and when I was born I was blue and somewhat distressed. Dad said that the first time he saw me I looked like a 'skinned rabbit’ but that he told Mum I was ‘ beautiful’. I have never quite forgiven him for that description, or that deception……. [http://www.discoverglasgow.org/statues-rottenrow-hospit al/4572885362]