Mum's world: Tapping for nappies

BACK in the day before cigarettes cost an arm and a leg and students lived frugally, I was known to bum the odd Marlboro. I returned the favour whenever I got paid for working an occasional shift in the college library. Re-arranging the music section according to the Dewey decimal system kept us all in fags for at least one night on the razz.

I also sponged off my sister who worked in the university. She had access to a Xerox but drew the line when I tried to photocopy a year’s worth of missed tutorials.

Students are renowned for scrounging; for volunteering for clinical trials; for being attracted to road signs and for knowing what time the kebab shop closes. They make no bones about it. But no-one wants to carry a reputation for cadging into later life. Gone are the days of hanging out by the Boole library in the hope of waylaying some smokey stranger or joining some obscure society just to get drink vouchers. Wage-earners are expected to pay their own way — making a recent experience all the more humiliating.

We had made a beeline for Muckross in Killarney on one of those rare sunny days in mid-April and had divided the mammoth task of packing between us. I was in charge of the changing bag. I checked for vests, added a couple of babygros, an abundance of wipes and nappy bags, a packet of disposable bibs and a giant jar of Sudocream. Once bikes and picnic were packed, we set off.

We arrived to the cries of a hungry child and I immediately set about feeding him. He then did what most babies do: passed the contents of his bottle into his newborn nappy. Unfazed, I reached for the changing bag. Clean vest? Check. Clean baby gro? Of course. Clean nappy? No. No nappies, nada, naught, zip, zilch, diddly squat. And no amount of rummaging could throw one up.

There was only one thing for it. Someone would have to go on the bum and it sure wasn’t going to be Mum. My Other Half, a wheedler in the extreme, was dispatched. He spent the next 10 minutes stalking prams around the grounds of Muckross trying to spot another newborn.

Several mothers looked nervous. Eventually, I saw him park himself next to a lady sitting with her baby. He returned some time later with an over-sized nappy. “She had a seven-month-old,” he said. “It was the best I could get. I think she may have thought I was chatting her up.”

Later in the day we passed by our nappy benefactor. I recognised her. Like me, she went to UCC. I think I may have tapped her for a Marlboro.