A History of Silence by Lloyd Jones

Author:Lloyd Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Auto-biography, Memoir
ISBN: 9781922148360
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2013-08-21T04:00:00+00:00

The newspaper articles and a coroner’s report also provide detail of Bibby’s mixed fortunes. From milling timber and building props for the nearby Castle Hill coalmine he has saved enough to begin building ‘a good-sized cottage’ when he is struck down.

In no particular order he cuts his finger on a chafing knife, is knocked off his horse by an over-hanging branch, is thrown from his horse and lands on a tree stump and then, with his foot caught in the stirrup, is dragged along the ground. The incidents read like a series of indignities. One of his injuries, however, will lead to an excruciating death in 1894 by tetanus.

The coroner was unsure, at first. Bibby’s symptoms suggested either strychnine poisoning or tetanus. To add to the confusion, the correspondent for the Clutha Leader reports ‘an epileptic fit’ as the cause of death. If correct, here is the source of Lorraine’s epilepsy, as it is carried through the male line.

Mother and daughter describe a strange mood overtaking Bibby. He seems abstracted, unreachable. His wife recalls him often depressed and prone to sitting around the house lamenting the decision to buy in Kaitangata instead of staying in Milton. He complains of rheumatism, until it reaches the stage where he can barely move his arms and legs. His nine-year-old son describes him on a milling expedition lying down in the bush unable to move. At night he wakes screaming, his body in convulsion. The fits increase until at last he agrees to see a doctor.

Dr Fitzgerald found him calling out in pain and grasping a rope with his right hand. Bibby wouldn’t let the doctor touch him:

He said each touch brought on one of those turns he had had. I found him bathed in perspiration, his shirt being simply soaked. His pulse was rather rapid, pulsations being about 108 per minute. He complained greatly of thirst. His wife gave two sips of water. While still on his bed he took a fit of vomiting and vomited about two or three ounces of clear fluid. Almost directly after one of the vomits he took a fit, and while the fit was on his face was livid. He did not froth at the mouth nor bite his tongue and seemed conscious all through it. He took a second fit much more severe from which he did not rally.

Dad’s mother, Eleanor, is sent to the local hotel to identify her father’s body—presumably there was no hospital—and there, in the hotel, two doctors saw through Bibby’s skull and cut out the brain to search for clues to his death.

Dr Fitzgerald continues, ‘Apart from a slight adhesion to the membrane everything was normal. The upper part of the spinal cord all healthy. The lungs and heart healthy. The stomach was found empty, no trace of poison could be detected.’

The hotel where Bibby’s brain was cut out can be found in a watercolour by Christopher Aubrey, painted in 1878, a few years after the Bibby’s arrival in Kaitangata. The hotel and church huddle by the confluence of the Clutha and Kaitangata Rivers.

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