Sadly, it happened
As we suspected
without putting words to our thoughts, a message that we received late
yesterday came with the confirmation that a friend had passed on after a
protracted illness.
I never met Dr William
Legg, known as Willy to many; he was born in Zimbabwe and even though he
travelled the world for work and his medical education, he was Rhodesian and
Zimbabwean, part of a cohort of typically white Africans that apart from their distinctive appearance would pass for native in manner, tongue, and probably
outlook too.
It was through Brian
that I made an acquaintance with Willy, who was ever courteous, wise, and, well, naughty. I guess with the people who crossed his path due to his profession, you acquire a facility to engage anyone at any level and keep them totally
at ease.
Some interactions to
note
Whenever he asked
Brian to pass his regards to me, there was something lewdly impolite that he
also expected Brian to do, to ensure I got the message completely. Seeing my
interest in not just Brian but Bulawayo too where he lived, he sent me an old hard-cover
book on Bulawayo that contained language that would not pass the censure of a copywriter today.
It depicted a time
and place that once was with an engaging narrative that made you want to make
off to see, feel, and experience Zimbabwe. There was an expectation that we
would meet as he desired to take me to the Matopos Hills, and
I was more than interested as that is also where Cecil John Rhodes was buried.
A thought in closing
Alas! We never got to
do that, as I have yet to visit Zimbabwe, and he had become quite increasingly frail
over the last few years. While having a very active mind to the end, his body
literally incapacitated him.
I have heard and read
many stories about Willy. He spoke fluent Ndebele, could make chapatis from scratch, was a doctor to many, and a teacher of the medical sciences to many more.
To Brian, he was a
friend, a boss, a confidante, a mentor, a father figure, and much more. It is
with him that I grieve the passing of Dr William Legg. May his gentle soul rest
in peace.
1 comment:
To add to your fund of Willie stories:
In amongst all the normal activities of being a clinical student in Harare Hospital, Zimbabwe, occasional remarkable incidents stood out. One day, someone mentioned in the tea-room that there was an especially unusual case in the maternity unit. It was definitely worth going to see, and it involved a tortoise. Along with Willie Legg, with whom I was then sharing a house, I went to have a look at this 'most unusual case'. In one of the small side wards holding the recently delivered mothers and their babies, we found a perfectly ordinary young mother in her bed; the adjoining bassinet contained a somewhat dusty but otherwise perfectly ordinary adult tortoise, complete with a few lettuce leaves. Luckily, Willie spoke perfect Shona, so he asked the mother what her exact story was. She told him she had gone through her pregnancy without any real problems, and had an apparently normal delivery in a district clinic. She had been greatly distressed when she was then presented, not with a swaddled baby, but a swaddled tortoise. According to the established protocol for such things, she was transferred with her new and very obviously 'abnormal' baby to our teaching hospital, as this was a most unusual complication.
It appeared impossible to either of us that anyone could ever accept this story, so we asked the young midwife working on that ward what she thought of the story. She said, and I quote: 'No, it could not possibly be true. I have examined the tortoise, and noted that its umbilicus is fully healed.' I took this as a valid point, but not a completely satisfactory answer. Naturally, we were nowhere near the end of the story, as the police were already on the case. It was soon confirmed that the clinic midwife had accepted a significant sum of money to give the newborn baby to a well-off local woman who was infertile. The tortoise had been substituted for the baby, with the hope that this unsophisticated young mother would just accept this reptile as her unhappy lot. Luckily, this never had to happen, and justice was eventually served.
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