New mission accomplished
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CALL The Midwife’s Christmas Special set in a South African mission in the 1960s may have stirred strong memories for Judith Varnham, who spent six years looking after newborn babies and their mothers in Malawi during the same period. Later she also spent time in Congo.
“I did three spells of two years’ service overseas, the first when I was in my 20s,” says Judith, now 75. “As a midwife in Malawi it was definitely one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life.
“I was part of a small team delivering babies and also helping to train nurses in both countries to help reduce the number of deaths of newborns and their mothers.
“Women dying from pregnancy and childbirth-related complications is a real issue in Africa and many of the local nurses only had limited training.
“I loved my time spent in Malawi as it has such beautiful countryside and fantastic people,” she adds. “My second stint was in Congo with the Baptist Missionary Society. It was a lot tougher living there as we had no doctors, running water or electricity.
“We didn’t have access to a radio so we felt extremely cut off from the world, especially as we did not even receive letters from home for months on end. It was a difficult adjustment to get used to but it was so worthwhile considering the work I was there to do.”
In 1982 Judith returned to Malawi for another two years, living and working in the capital, Lilongwe. “That was where I met my husband,” she says. “He was there working for the Lilongwe agriculture department and taught people living in remote villages how to earn a living from farming and agriculture.”
Judith retired in 1995 after returning to the UK to teach midwifery. But after her husband became ill and passed away she decided to move closer to her sister and family as she had no relations where she lived in Somerset. Judith used Churchill Retirement Living’s Selling Made Easy service, which sold her bungalow within a day (“a miracle considering we had tried to sell it eight years ago when it was on the market for over 12 months without any success”) and moved into Beecham Lodge in Cirencester. The Somerford Road apartments, half a mile from the centre of Cirencester, have spacious bedrooms and lounges plus fully-fitted kitchens. All the properties have illuminated light switches, fitted camera entry and 24-hour emergency call systems.
There are apartments for sale and the show complex is open daily from 10am to 5pm, with one-bedroom apartments from £207,950 and two-bedroom flats from £279,950 (01285 600 154; churchillretirement.co.uk).
The leasehold apartments are only available to people aged 60-plus and their partners have to be at least 55 to live there.
It’s a long journey from the plains of Africa to the rolling hills of the Cotswolds but Judith has quickly settled in, taking part in on-site activities organised by the Lodge manager and joining the local Baptist church.
“I love my new home here,” she says “and I feel safe and secure about the future.”