Chapter 17

By the time we returned from holiday both Katy and I felt we had really established good relationships with Harry and Sylvia and we also felt we had made a really good choice with our nanny. She in turn got on well with all of us and she told us that she was glad she had accepted the job with us because we made her feel a part of the family.

I felt that once we graduated and moved to Herefordshire where I would be working, Sylvia would also like to play a role in our little boy's life. If so this meant that we could be more flexible with Shelley's hours and give her time off during the day especially if we required her services in the evening. We would be able to do this because there were times when Sylvia would welcome the chance to look after Henry junior.

During the rest of the holiday we booked in to the Cluny Inn and while Shelley looked after Henry we did several days hill walking, doing the South Sheil Ridge, the Five Sisters on the other side of the road and the on the Saturday we did the Saddle and its companion. This meant in the course of the week we bagged thirteen Munroe in the course of the week. There were seven on the ridge, four of the Five Sisters and of course the Saddle with Sgur na Sgine brought our total to thirteen.

On the days in between we took Shelley and Henry with us and visited Eilan Donnan Castle, and us, which had been restored to its full glory by Colonel John Macrae Gilstrap between 1919 and 1922. With them we also spent a day on Skye and were lucky enough to see some whales when we took a boat trip from the island. It was the first time Shelley had visited the Scottish highlands and islands and their beauty impressed her. She also said that some day she would like to do some of the hills with us.

With Sylvia and Harry both enjoying the time they spent with Henry, we thought there was a distinct possibility that they would be willing to come up sometime and baby sit to make this a possibility. We said as much to her and promised that we would look into the matter. She was delighted with his response.

Once the first term of our final year at St Andrews began Shelley had to enter more fully into her role as Henry's main carer though both Katy and I spend a fair amount of time with him at various stages of the normal working day. However as the year progressed and our workload increased and that amount of time would probably reduce and become more equivalent to that of normal working parents.

Nevertheless as the weeks progressed our life fell into a pattern of lectures and large amounts of home study and trying to spend as much time as we could with our child. Fortunately he and Shelley had struck up a very good relationship with and he was quite content to be left with her. For her part Shelley had enrolled him in swimming classes, took him to the nursery two mornings per week and made sure that he had plenty of intellectual stimulation

Sylvia came up twice in the term before Christmas and she and Shelley cooperated well so that she got plenty of time to spend with Henry. Because she saw a great deal of him during the summer holidays he readily recognised that granny had come to visit and once she had been in the house for a short time was happy to go to her. This also meant that Shelley got a bit more time to pursue her own interests.

Everything in the garden seemed to be going well but at the beginning of December his Lordship got some bad news. There had been an attack on one of the farms by ANC guerrillas and their son had been badly wounded. The information Harry and Sylvia received was not very detailed, but they contacted us to say that they were flying out to South Africa right away and would keep us posted with regard to their son's condition.

There was no way that we could join them at this time. We were in the middle of the most vital year of our studies and we had a young child to care for into the bargain. Besides which Katy's feelings towards her brother were far from positive. She made it clear that she would be sorry for her parents if they lost their son but would not herself grieve greatly over his passing if the worst came to pass. In the light of what had happened to her I could sympathize with the way she felt.

When Sylvia contacted us from South Africa we learned that Henry had a severe head would and had also been shot in the chest and in the legs. He was in a coma and his condition was critical. He was lucky in one respect, apparently the head wound he had received had been from a small calibre weapon possibly a point two two rifle or he would not have survived. The bad news was that its passage had been deflected and it had come to rest in an area of his brain, which meant any surgery was going to be difficult and carry severe risks.

Since the trajectory of the bullet meant that they could not follow its passage and merely draw it out the way it went in, major surgery was going to be needed. This in turn posed the risk that in trying to retrieve the bullet they might leave him paralysed: or even worse leave him in a vegetative state which could last for years. It sounded to us that her brother's condition was very grave indeed. They were considering having their son airlifted home, as the time they could spend in South Africa was limited. In the end they decided Harry would fly home and return when he could. In the meantime Sylvia would be remaining in South Africa.

In the middle of December Henry went under the knife as his doctors decided to remove the bullet. By Christmas he still had not regained consciousness and his doctors had no idea when he would come out of his coma. His brain was still showing signs of activity but they could not say what his condition would be as a result of their intervention to retrieve the bullet. They were also concerned because in the aftermath of the operation his chest infection returned and they had to administer another heavy course of antibiotics to fight it.

When we broke for the end of term Christmas Holiday, Katy decided that she wanted to travel to South Africa to support her mother. We told Shelley that she could spend Christmas with her family and that we would take the baby with us on our South African Trip.

Having made up our mind that we would make the journey we decided to fly there in our own plane and Harry asked us if we could pick him up on our way. We agreed and filed a flight plan that entailed several refuelling stops along the way. Once we had landed we hired a car and made our way to the hotel where Sylvia was staying. Despite it being Christmas we had been able to book a room at the same hotel.

Once we had settled in we met with Harry and Sylvia in the bar before dinner. She was really pleased that we had come and we received very warm hugs from her before her attention turned to Henry who happily went into his grandmother's arms. It was obvious from her appearance that she was feeling the strain of her son's illness and the uncertainty surrounding his future. She had spent a lot of time in the intensive care unit just talking to her son and reading to him in the hope that the sound of her voice would penetrate the fog of his coma.

She had been helped in this because the manager of the farm where the attack had happened told her that the young African woman with whom here son had been living had asked if she could come and see him. Despite some grave reservations Sylvia had agreed and this had turned out to be a blessing. The young women made it clear right from the outset that his concern was for Henry and that she had no wish to make any claims upon his family

I think both Katy and I hoped that having us there and especially having her grandson with her would relieve some of the tension and take her mind off her worries when she spent her time with him. Visiting was fairly open but the number of people allowed to his bedside was limited to two people. I went along with Sylvia the day after she and Harry had visited.

I was shocked to see her son with his head swathed in bandages and connected to a battery of monitors, which recorded his heart and brain waves. Since the operation although still registering a degree of activity they had diminished somewhat and the surgeons were worried about this. They were also worried because there was a resurgence of his chest infection and they once again had to pump more antibiotics into him.

When I returned to the hotel I told Katy that I felt that her brother was in a bad way and that even if he did recover he might well be impaired mentally and perhaps in other ways. Although no love was lost between her and Henry she was saddened to hear this news. She made up her mind that she would visit with her mother and father next day and assure them that she would support them in caring for him if this was needed.

After about ten days we had to fly home and Lord Harry came with us as he had important parliamentary duties to take cars off before the end of the Christmas recess. In the light of that we had a conference about Henry's future treatment before we left. It was decided that Sylvia would make enquiries about the possibility of having him moved by air ambulance to a hospital in England nearer to their home. If this were possible then Harry would fly back and accompany her on the journey home. When we returned to St. Andrews, Shelley rejoined us early in the New Year and once again we were soon submerged in our studies.

By the end of January at a considerable cost, and with his doctor's approval, Henry was flown back to England and he was admitted to Bristol Royal Infirmary to their critical care unit. This meant that Sylvia could visit him more easily from her home. If anything his condition had deteriorated as a result of his transfer and the doctors at Bristol did a full reassessment of his condition and the prognosis was not good. He still hadn't recovered consciousness from being shot in the head and no one seemed to know if or when he would.