Page 48 - Number 2 2021 Volume 74

36 The Society of Malaŵi Journal

never held her back in anything, be it performing a lumbar puncture or driving a
car.
From her bedroom window she watched Rotterdam burning when it was
carpet bombed to force the Dutch surrender. Her father, a prominent citizen and
town councillor was on several occasions incarcerated as a hostage during those
years. This did not dissuade the teenage Ankie from carrying messages for the
Resistance hidden within the saddle of her bicycle: the penalty if caught was
summary execution. The fearless element of her nature which so marked her later
years was already well-evident.
At University she met her husband, Jan, also studying medicine, and they
were married in 1952. After graduating Jan started on surgical training in Deventer
where they lived until 1960. Ankie, taking up an early interest in community
paediatrics, worked part time as her family grew, whilst harbouring a prevailing
ambition to work in a developing country. Having completed his surgical training,
Jan applied to the Colonial Office in London to work as a surgeon in Africa. He
was offered a post as surgical specialist in Nyasaland and in 1962 they and their
six children set off by boat to Cape Town. In the spirit of early settlers, all
squeezed into a Citroen station wagon, they continued the journey overland
through South Africa, Rhodesia and thence to Blantyre.
In the early years in Blantyre while Jan worked as one of only two
surgeons in the country, Ankie ran the household of seven little boys, but finding
time to do regular sessions at the newly built Mlambe mission hospital just outside
Blantyre. Later, she joined the staff at the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital where
she, incrementally, devoted more hours of work into a nominally part time job
that ensured that she was at home in the afternoon with her children. As well as
overseeing homework, music practice and Dutch O-levels, Ankie would mark
each of Jan’s birthdays with a play, written and directed by herself, performed by
all of the boys.
In the early 1960s came the breakup of the Federation, and many of the
doctors working for the federal health service returned to Rhodesia. Most of the
doctors at QECH left; Jan and Ankie were amongst the very few who chose to
stay. They became instrumental in attracting the young Dutch tropical medicine
doctors to Malawi - who for many of the subsequent decades staffed the majority
of the district hospitals of the country.
When Ankie began working at QE there was not even a separate,
dedicated ward for paediatrics: children were admitted to the female medical ward
with their mothers. Not only was there no ward, there were equally no colleagues,
but she was undeterred. The abiding interest in paediatrics which so defined the
rest of her life was already nascent. Recognising the need for formal
qualifications, she sat the diploma of child health of the Royal College of
Physicians in London in 1969. Following that she set herself the task of tackling