RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32720, 24 September 1971, Page 17

RANDOM REMINDER

BULLETIN

One can feel nothing but sympathy for the man who is having his first baby. It is all right for his wife. She has been trained for years for her task. She has been coached by the Plunket people, her doctor and the pre-natal clinics; her bed is booked, and all she has to worry about is keeping the flowers and herself looking at their best after the arrival of the child. But her husband all of a sudden is cast into a ’ strange, cold world, where he has to fend for himself—and carry out a long list of instructions she has

written "out for him before she left him, with a comforting hug, to go off and enjoy herself in a comfortable hospital. Sometimes the poor man, who finds difficulty even in feeding himself, is required to telephone her girl friends and relatives when the blessed event is over, to bring them up to date with the news. This poor, new young husband had just that task put upon him when his wife carelessly gave birth during the night. At ' the top of the list was her girl friend, Jill. He dialled. A girl Answered. He asked if it was Jill. She said it was.

He said excitedly that they had had a son. She asked who was speaking. He said it was Paul. She said Paul who. He said Paul Whateveritwas and, in the friendly way longestablished between them, he tossed in a couple of terms which have only recently, in the modem novel, seen the light of day. Jill must really be very nice. She said she really didn’t mind being got out of bed one little bit, that she thought it absolutely lovely that they had a son, but that he had got the wrong Jill, because she didn’t know any Pauls of his name.