Taken into custody

Conferences.  If you stay in the trade, conferences will be part of your life, and December is a popular time, if not so popular as mid summer.  Musing back to memorable conferences, I find it is not the mathematical thrills that have stuck in mind after several decades, but the human aspect.  Scheveningen, swimming in the sea, Utah, a toe curlingly embarrassing experience consequent upon severe jet lag and a minor conflagration in the hotel, Salamanca and the missing luggage, Hamburg, pleasant accommodation in a comfortable B+B when we (the only two women at a conference) were excluded from the rest of the group at the Military Highschool, which had no accommodation for women, Utah, again, getting lost in choke cherries in the mountains. So many to choose from.  Happy days.  But if I were to choose one, it probably has to be this story.  Children lend such colour to life, and to the experience of conferences.

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December 1985. The plane was late.  Standing at the back of a weary mob that could not be described as a queue oozing though immigration at Gatwick, I gave up the unequal struggle to restrain my restive toddler who was cheerfully pushing his way through a forest of legs towards the barrier. Immigration halls in airports didn't then have the maze arrangement that is popular (?) nowadays, and while I didn't think I was at the back of the queue earlier it appeared that I now was.  Elbows not sharp enough I guess. They are hardly going to allow an unescorted one year old through.  I was tired.  Let him roam.

We - I was accompanied not only by my youngest, but also by our long-suffering nanny - were on our way back from a week in Trieste.  With the arrival of the third, we had splashed out and changed child-care tactics and Caroline arrived in the household. While I was breastfeeding it somehow seemed simplest for Caroline and the infant to come along with me to conferences. (Simplest is not simple, by the way.) I thus travelled in the style of grand victorian dame, complete with retinue.  Or maybe as some Donna Quixote* with a faithful Sancha Panza shaking her head but following loyally, expecting to have to pick up the pieces.

We had coped well. This time at least the infant had not been ill, nor had either of us, the conference had not included any slanging matches, and on the whole I was content, if tired with the desperate hopeless weariness that any working mother will be familiar with. On balance I was pleased.  And desperate to get home. The talks went well, there were some interesting discussions, some good people to talk with.  And I would sell my ears for the privilege of lying down.

My musings are interrupted by a voice from the front.  "Whose baby is this?"  I own up to being the feckless mother who let her little adventurer wander. We are summoned forward to claim him. The crowd parts a little to let me and Caroline squeeze through. An Italian Grandpa attaches himself to Caroline and follows.  And is stopped and sent back by the immigration officer when he cannot actually claim any relationship to the child. We get through immigration.

To discover that Alitalia has lost our bag, the one with Sebastian the Seal in it, all important sleeping companion of the boy. We need to register Sebastian's disappearance, which takes time. 

We catch a train that might or might not get us to King's Cross in time for the last train to Cambridge. It doesn't.  If we are lucky, we might catch the last train from Liverpool street.  It's worth a try. We try. We miss it. It is past 1am. The milk train from Liverpool Street to Cambridge goes at 4:30 in the morning. I haven't the energy to find a hotel. Caroline might have rolled her eyes, but makes no verbal objection. She pushes the remaining cases together to make a bed for the little one, and we settle down for a cold dark wait.

We are not alone. We share a long bench with perhaps fifteen others who will sit out the night with us. If they are lucky.  I doubt many of them have destinations in mind. They are a quiet, subdued group, with their carrier bags by their feet, their hats pulled well down against more than cold.

They are not lucky. The police arrive, two officers, seeming enormous from the perspective of the bench in their helmets and long shadows.  They start at the far end. "Name? Address?" No answer to the second question, and our companion is made to move on. The process repeats. Eventually it is my turn. I can answer both questions, as well as speak for my nanny and the sleeping child. The result is consternation among the constabulary. 

The officers step away to confer between themselves as to what they might do with us. We wait silently, taking in this new experience, wondering whether it is actually an offence to be stranded at Liverpool Street Station, and what the punishments might entail.

They have decided our fate.  We are to be locked in the ladies loo. For our own protection.

I suppose I am grateful. The ladies loo of the day comprised both a ladies waiting room and the loo itself. The waiting room was tolerably comfortable, fronted with floor to ceiling glass windows and door. I suppose I felt safer, from anything but fire, but I had not felt threatened before. At about 3am a desperate woman came running and pounded on the door. We could only shrug and gesture our helplessness.  Poor woman.

We were released from custody at 4am to board the train. We were home by 6:30.  Caroline continued to work as nanny for us until we left for a sabbatical in the US.  I have never understood why.

*Donna Quixote knows perfectly well those are windmills that she's tilting at. She will do it anyway.  And she knows it will hurt.