Excerpts from Wendy's diaries

Where better to begin than this! Janet Wendelken and Louise Zuhrer took the train from Perth to Adelaide. They stayed with a nursing friend, visited the Koala bear reserve, Windy Point lookout in the Adelaide Hills, the South Australian Museum; then on Sunday "Took a bus to Darlington. Left my camera in bus! Picked up by John Last in a little Austin, took us to Cape Jervis and [Victor Harbor]& home again. Stayed in South Terrace [hotel/guest house]. Went out [to John Last's home]for evening." Several years ago when I asked Wendy to check her diary for the date we met, she looked and told me it had been Sunday August 7, 1955; her diary gives a later date, Sunday September 29, but her dating in the notebook she used for that diary is inconsistent and rather eccentric, so I'll stick with the date she told me after counting up on her fingers from a fixed point, the date they left Perth. At the back of that diary she wrote a more lengthy account of that momentous day in our lives.
For now I'll pass over her diary for 1956 where there are many references to our increasingly affectionate letters back and forth, then an account of our courtship. I haven't found her diaries for 1957 or 1958, and suspect they don't exist. On Saturday-Sunday March 28-29, 1959 she wrote: "Hot & humid. Cleaned veranda windows & mirrors. Did washing & swabbed decks. Mother did all chores & dinner. U Malcolm to dinner. Sat around all evening. Took castor oil to no effect. Into hospital 11.30 pm, started labour about 12.30 am. Had 2 Doriden tabs about 1 am, half a doz hard contractions then into theatre, 2 painful contractions then John arrived to hold hands, three fast powerful pushes, holding back as much as possible, then head arrived 3 am. Dry retching till 4.30. Felt awful." Thus David entered the world.
Here is her diary entry for Saturday-Sunday June 8-9 1963: "Had a quiet day. Did some hand-washing & tidied up. Wrote to Dodie and Jan Gilfillan [Fry]. John got lunch ready & took kids for a run on beach while I made choc cake, meringues & fruit cake. Had a rush to get ready for Cullen's dinner party. Home 11.30, straight to Mater Hosp. 3 pushes & Jonathan born." I barely had time to wash my hands and ease Jonathan into the world, because the midwife was busy trying to phone our doctor, who arrived eventually about an hour later. We managed fine without that GP, who missed the very loud heart murmur that I heard when I examined Jonathan a few weeks later on a Sunday night because we were worried about his persistent cough and breathlessness; from then on, Jonathan was in the care of a pediatric cardiologist.