On time but overcooked

WHEN Cameron Baird entered this world in the Burnie hospital in 1981, his tired mum Kaye told a friend he was so wrinkly he was the ugliest baby she’d ever seen.

“I’m not ashamed to say that,’’ she laughed this week.

“Our first on Brendan was born by caesarean. They always say thsey haven’t had any trauma and they come out looking beautiful.

“When Cameron came along it was a forceps birth and he looked terrible, a shrivelled-up little man. They said even though he came on the exact day he was supposed to, they reckoned he was a bit overcooked and probably should have been born two weeks earlier.’’ But Cam quickly became a beautiful child in his mum’s eyes.

Three years later the family returned to Melbourne and settled at Gladstone Views on the northside, near the Tullamarine airport.

By the time he began school Cameron was growing into a strapping lad.

The book describes how one of the teachers at Gladstone Views Primary told Kaye he was too competitive, too singular in focus and would not amount to much in life.

“I thought you’ve got this wrong lady, so I went and saw other teachers,’’ Kaye told the Bulletin. “One in particular said to me, ‘That’s not right, he’s competitive but he’s not going to stomp on anybody’s head to be the winner’. He never did. Cameron was pretty mild mannered, actually.’’