How my brother got his name.

My parents lived on a property in the wool district of New South Wales, in Eastern Australia. My father had inherited the land from his father who had decided that his joints were far better suited to the warm climate of Queensland. Shortly after my parents married, my grandfather packed my grandmother in their car with as many belongings as could be squeezed in, and headed out along the dirt driveway, straw hat on his head, singing the praises of Cairns. They were never to grace that driveway again.

Both my parents had grown up on the land and farming came naturally to them. They took on the large parcel of land, with its rocks, sheep and rabbits. It was a harsh area, frosty in winter with the occasional snow fall, and hot in summer. So hot sometimes it was hard to move and the air would shimmer above the ground like some magical force field.

The property consisted of an ancient, enormous barn and a small bungalow with four rooms. It was hot in summer and cold in winter. My mother did not care much for the prettiness of the house but did endeavour to fight the constant battle against the outside temperature. This for the most part involved keeping the doors and windows closed to the heat, or the cold, and allowing the sun in, or not in, depending on the time of year. It was often a lost battle as one of us would inevitably leave the door open and lose whatever thermal property she had been aiming to maintain. Mum would race to the door in exasperation and yell the name of the most likely offender. It was usually my dad, but mum would only ever yell at my brother or me. She was strangely gentle when it came to dad.

Mum was a garrulous woman who enjoyed sharing her opinion with others when given the chance. I would smile to myself hearing her tell of her predictions on the price of wool, or the latest scientific revelation she had heard of. These were almost always word for word from the mouth of my father. Mum loved dad. She also had a complete confidence that everything dad thought and said was absolutely correct. To mum dad was the cleverest man in the world.

Mum was right to respect dad’s opinions. Dad had not received a formal education, having left school at 16, but he had a hungry mind and he kept it well fed. He read medical journals, national geographic, and the Financial Review. In fact dad pretty much spent any spare time he had reading. He had a great love for fiction and had read most of the classics. His love of words resulted in him being a talented story teller and I suspect had he been given the opportunity dad could have been the writer of some classic fiction himself. Dad also operated and maintained all the machinery on our farm. He had a innate ability to understand how things worked. Sometimes he would entertain my brother and me by calculating impossible numbers in his head and we would check on our school calculators. We would berate him terribly if he ever got one wrong. It rarely happened.

The story of my brother’s birth has been told to me many times and it comes in two versions, mum’s and dad’s. Mum’s version involves lots of words like “terrifying” and “agony”. Poor mum says that at twenty years old she barely knew how the baby had got in there, let alone how it was to come out. The late fifties was a time where sex education was scarce, particularly in the country. Child birthing was apparently women’s business, but having no sisters, and a mother who had passed away many years previously, my mother had missed out on this vital education. She had seen sheep deliver their lambs on hundreds of occasions but when it came to delivering her own baby, it had suddenly become far more painful and complicated than it had been for the average ewe. I prefer dad’s version and he loved to tell it.

Mum’s visits to the local midwife in town were to begin when she reached 6 months gestation. Prior to that she had been seen by the family doctor on one occasion to ensure everything was progressing well. The local town was about 25 kms away. There was no phone at our home until about ten years later, which was not unusual for that era. The neighbours, who lived about 5 km away, had a phone installed where one could instantly connect to the operator in town. We relied on a radio system which was little better than a walkie talkie, but allowed dad to contact mum, the contractors, and the farm hands that worked on the property from time to time.

Dad says mum looked spritely on the day that my brother came into the world. According to dad most sheep look a little poorly so you get the idea their time is near. So to dad it seemed a good idea for him to head out and attend to whatever farming duties he had happening for the day. He took the walkie talkie.

My mother decided it was a good day to organise the barn. I have heard that it is not uncommon for women to get an urge to get jobs around the home done when childbirth is imminent. It is referred to as “nesting” but perhaps this is merely an old wives’ tale.

While squatting to lift a bag of garden fertiliser, mum felt a gush of fluid leak from between her legs. Not sure of what this meant she decided a rest might be helpful and sat down on a hay bale. By the time she was able to raise my dad on the walkie talkie she was well into labour and ensconced amongst the hay. She screamed into the speaker and dad had to cover his ears to decipher the words. Dad returned home via the neighbour’s house as he realised that the baby was to arrive way too early, and a doctor and ambulance would need to be called. He brought along the neighbour’s daughter Samantha, home from boarding school for the holidays, as she was the only one home. He decided that an extra pair of hands would be useful but poor Sam had not even experienced the birth of a lamb. Dad said she did a “Bang up job” for a city girl.

By the time dad and Samantha arrived at the barn mum was terrified and in pain. Dad said she looked like a brumby when it was being chased by a wild dog. Her eyes bulged with panic and she held her head in an odd way as if trying to listen to a far off sound. She was holding onto the barn wall and swaying back and forth. When a contraction came she would scream so loudly that dad retrieved some ear protection from the barn shelves for Sam and himself. Dad had attended compulsory national service as a young man and swore that his hearing had been significantly damaged from all the firing of rifles and machine guns. The result was not only hearing loss but also a ringing in his ears made worse by loud noises. Whenever dad was in a noisy environment he would say “Its making my ears bleed!” So dad and Samantha wore those ridiculous earmuffs all through mum’s labour and delivery.

Dad assessed the situation and took control. He directed Sam to find the items that would be necessary in case the ambulance did not make the birth, and I imagine she was happy to be out of the barn for a while. The difficulty was that she couldn't hear what dad was saying so they communicated with an impromptu game of charades accompanied by my poor mother’s screams.

Dad said he was grateful he couldn't hear all the things mum was saying as he suspected she may have been directing some unkind words at him, but luckily he would never be sure. My brother decided to make his way into the world before the ambulance or doctor arrived. He had the cord around his neck and was completely still. My mother remembered him looking like a tiny concrete baby, still and grey, too tiny to be in the world. Dad described him as a tiny perfectly formed human. He wasn't breathing so my father swept into action as he would with a troubled lamb delivery. He placed his mouth gently over his tiny face, and carefully sucked out any fluid that was present in his struggling airways. He encouraged Samantha to rub his spindly legs and body with a towel and dad breathed gently into my brother’s nose and mouth. My brother responded with a triumphant wail. Both my parents agreed it was out of proportion to the bluish, fragile looking baby that emitted it. Samantha also let out a wail. She was so relieved the little baby was alive. She clapped her hands and hugged my father furiously, like he had just won a medal of some sort. It was then my father decided to call my brother Sam. My mother agreed it was an appropriate name, after all if my father thought it was a good name, then it certainly was.

The doctor arrived about five minutes too late, and immediately attended to little Sam. As he prepared him for the ambulance he chatting quietly to himself, his doctor’s voice calm and reassuring. My father recalled him remarking quietly to the tiny baby that a barn was an unusual but excellent birthing suite. “Stay strong little Barny Boy!” he said to my brother as he handed him to the ambulance officer to be transported to hospital. With that my brother was never known as Sam again.