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The Not So Great Escape
(Leighton MacDonald)

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Page 8: On a cold Feb. night in 1957, when I was four years old, something very serious and scary was happening to my mother. She was lying on the pull out couch in our two room shack. She was moaning and screaming one moment and then quiet the next. This seemed to go on for a long period of time, I thought my mother was dying. Late that evening two of my uncles came to our house, my mother's brothers. I could see my Dad and my uncles whispering excitedly in the corner. I couldn't hear what they were saying but when they were finished their conversation it was agreed upon that my uncle James would go summon the village Doctor, we had no telephone. I was very worried for my mother, especially because I had no idea what was ailing her. Dad nor my uncle would give me a straight answer as to why Mom was sick. After what seem like a long time my uncle arrived with old Doctor Mead. My uncles, younger brother, older brother and me went to the other room and closed the curtain that separated the two rooms. My younger brother was three years old and slightly dimwitted. My older brother was six and was just as anxious as me to know what was wrong with Mom. The only answers we got from them was to pray, which they proceeded to do. My mother's family were all devoted Roman Catholics and they strongly believed in the power of prayer. We all stood close together while my uncles recited their Our Fathers and Hail Marys. Suddenly I could hear a baby crying in the next room, my uncles stopped praying and began looking at the closed curtain with stunned looks on their faces. Then Dad pushed the curtain aside and said it was OK to come out and see Mom. She was lying on the couch bathed in sweat with a tiny baby cradled in her arms. Mom told us kids not to worry, that everything was going to be all right and we had a new baby sister. My brothers and I were told to go to bed. As I lay there in wonderment of the events that occurred that night I could hear Mom complaining about the Doctor being drunk and the smell of whiskey on his breath ?I could have delivered her myself, that drunken doctor wasn?t much help.?? I fell asleep knowing Mom was not going to die.

three

My own beginning in life took place at the Grace Maternity Hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I was born on August 31'st, 1952, and not long after, baptized as Clayton Sidney MacDougle, a month premature and I was told by my mother that I was a sorry looking sight, only weighing a little over 2 lbs. with no hair, eyelashes, brows or fingernails. The Doctors didn't have much hope for my survival but I'd prove them wrong by growing to be a healthy little boy. Although as an adult I would reach the height of only 5 ft. 3 in. I was a stocky little fella. In the summer of 1958 my family consisted of me, Mom, Dad, two brothers and a baby sister. The six of us lived in a two room shack next to a beach in Eastern Passage, a small fishing and farming community at the mouth of Halifax Harbour, on the Dartmouth side.
We had no running water or sewer so we had to get our water from the well with buckets and use an out-house. I didn't know we were poor because most all of the other families were living in the same conditions. My Dad worked at the Nova Scotia Hospital as a Cook's Helper, his salary was about $100 per month, that didn't go very far even in 58'. But his position in the Hospital kitchen allowed the six of us to eat good. Dad would bring home food just about every day, items such as meat, flour, sugar and eggs. He would take home whatever he could get away with. Dad used to pedal a bicycle back and forth to work, about 5 miles each way. On the back of his bike he had a box secured, and very seldom was that box empty when he got home from work. My brothers and I would wait in anticipation for Dad to come home because often he would have pastries hidden in his coat. When he came through the door my brothers and I would mob him and he woaturedly make sure we all got a portion of whatever sweets he had brought home. But there was a dark side to our family life.



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