Geoffrey, After His Grandfather

Samuel Geoffrey Marston was born at 9:48 am at the Royal Hobart Hospital, the second child of Alice Catherine Marston and Detective Sergeant David Geoffrey Marston of Tasmania Police. He weighed 3.41 kilograms. The labour lasted a little under three hours from the first contraction to the birth, and there were no complications.

Alice's contractions began shortly before seven, after David had already left the house in Lenah Valley. He was due in the Supreme Court that morning to give evidence in an armed robbery trial, and his mobile telephone was switched off, as court practice required. Alice rang her parents in Bellerive instead. Robert and Margaret Hughes crossed the Tasman Bridge together. Robert, retired from Treasury the year before, stayed at the house with Grace Evelyn Marston, then three and a half. Margaret drove Alice to the hospital in Alice's car and, on the way, left a message for David at the Criminal Investigation Branch.

The attending midwife, Ruth Talley, examined Alice on admission and found the labour already well advanced. There was no time for the epidural Alice had planned on, and no need for one. Margaret stayed in the birth suite throughout. Samuel arrived after twenty minutes of pushing, cried briefly and loudly, and then lay quiet on his mother's chest with his eyes open.

David received the message at the morning adjournment, on a note passed to him by a court officer. He went back into the witness box, completed his evidence, and only then left for the hospital. He reached the maternity ward an hour and a half after his son was born. He took the baby from Alice and held him standing at the window, and he stood there for a long time before he sat down.

Robert brought Grace in during the afternoon. She inspected her brother from the edge of the bed and asked to hold him. She was allowed to, with her grandfather supporting the baby's head, and after a minute or two she handed him back and turned her attention to the sandwiches her grandmother had brought.

The boy ended his first day with only half a name. Alice had settled on Samuel months before, choosing it because it belonged to no one in either family. David had asked for Geoffrey as the middle name, after his father in Burnie, and Alice had not agreed. Neither of them raised it in the ward that evening, while their son slept in the bassinet beside the bed.