Nothing frightens or worries a parent more than a child’s illness. Anne and I have been remarkably fortunate where Justin and Patricia were concerned.

Dr. Spock’s baby care manual helped us to deal sensibly with the attacks of vomiting and fevers which hit infants as they become more exposed to the outside world. No matter how distressed the babies might seem, particularly when their hair became matted with perspiration, we learnt to trust the objective evidence of the thermometer and to call a doctor whenever a high temperature persisted.

Just as the onset of infection in a child seems sudden and dramatic, so recovery can seem almost instantaneous. That had been our experience too with Justin’s appendicitis. At its onset Anne knew he was ill and his recovery from the operation seemed almost spontaneous.

The symptoms which hit Patricia at the end of the European School’s summer term in 1984 were much more disturbing because they did not fit readily into any pattern with which we were familiar.

1984 was one of those years when we all seemed in need of a summer holiday. Justin was back from Bootham and in need of distraction. Anne had been nursing Patricia through school and music exams. The atmosphere in the European Commission was tense, as it always is in the last year of a mandate. Our holiday plans looked good in that we had taken up the Ashs’ offer that we might stay in their Kew house when they were away on holiday in Donegal. London looked like the ideal holiday venue for us, with plenty for everyone to do and fine weather prospects.

Patricia’s symptoms crept up on her during July. She complained of being tired and of pins and needles in her toes and fingers and, one day, when she and I and Justin were testing our long-distance vision in a metro station by trying to read the train direction indicators and posters, she complained that there seemed to be a lot she could not see.

We immediately made an appointment to see the ophthalmologist we attended and as he put her through the routine tests he showed immediate concern. He told us that her field of vision seemed to be greatly reduced and that she should have some neurological test immediately to check that there was nothing serious behind the symptoms.

It added to our own concern that he seemed anxious to have the results of the proposed tests, and to have a report from the paediatric neurologist he recommended, before he himself would leave on holiday at the end of the following week. He asked when we planned to go away and told us not to go without clearance from him. He checked that we had his surgery and home telephone numbers so that we could keep in touch as might be necessary.

Although reassuring, in that he projected a sense of great professional competence and personal concern, our visit to the ophthalmologist turned out to be frightening for Patricia and painfully worrying for us all.

The tests were promptly arranged for the nearby University hospital and Patricia held up well over a day of occasionally painful and often stressful tests as electrodes were applied and lights flashed in darkened rooms. Anne, who accompanied her through the long waits in the corridors, found the experience exhausting herself.

Our first Saturday morning visit to the neurologist, Dr. Herbaut, prolonged the tension between the reassurance of high professionalism and the stress of waiting rooms and unpleasant tests. His consulting rooms were a distance away on the ground floor of an apartment block where it was difficult to park. We found it difficult to imagine that he could have so many patients, but Patricia had to take her turn among both older and younger children, each of whom had to be ushered through an ECG examination room before being admitted with their parents to see the consultant. An elderly nurse was the guardian of the ECG, carefully clipping a range of electrodes on to the scalps of the young patients seated in a black leather chair.

We were interviewed by Dr. Herbaut as he sat with the ECG chart of Patricia’s brainwaves spread out in front of him like data from a seismograph. He said there was no sign of unusual activity and asked a lot of questions about Patricia’s activities and, in particular, possible exposure to chemicals or pollution. His report to the ophthalmologist would be positive, but he would advise keeping Patricia under regular review after the holidays, said rest should do her good, and recommended a course of a vitamin supplement, a special fish extract called “Lecitone”.

On the following week, the week we were due to go away, the ophthalmologist confirmed by telephone that nothing had been identified as a possible cause of Patricia’s symptoms, that nothing required treatment or should give us any cause for alarm, and that we could leave as scheduled for our holiday. He assured us that on our return he and Dr. Herbaut would monitor the situation.

We were all relieved to head for London, taking the car through Calais and Dover, and beginning to schedule our three weeks in terms of rest and recreation rather than constant activity and sightseeing.

The Ash’s comfortable house proved to be an ideal base. Patricia and Anne slept a lot. Justin spent hours with the television set and video recorders which were an essential feature of the media conscious household. I spent a good deal of time, particularly in the early morning, drawing and experimenting with the introductory set of acrylic paints I had brought with me.

The one day of the holiday we all remember, and still talk about, was the day Justin and Patricia spent watching consecutively the first three Star Trek films, presented in a single non-stop performance at a cinema near Piccadilly. A few “Trekkies” were dressed in Star Trek costumes for the showing and apparently there was a friendly atmosphere in the cinema as the audience partied through the intervals. Anne and I felt happy to leave Justin in charge – as the elder brother – and we had a good day on our own, visiting an exhibition in the Serpentine Gallery, and sunning ourselves in the Gallery garden afterwards, before collecting the children at Piccadilly.

After the holiday, the monitoring showed that Patricia’s field of vision was returning and the pins and needles symptoms gradually disappeared. Patricia’s fear that her piano playing would be affected and our parental concerns that the symptoms might be the first manifestation of a serious long-term condition gradually subsided.

Dr. Herbaut eventually terminated the monitoring, declaring that, while he could not explain what had happened, he was prepared to certify on the basis of his long professional experience that there was nothing wrong with Patricia, and that the incident affecting her optic nerve was over.

That summer was nevertheless one we would always remember for what has gone into the family folklore as “Patricia’s summer seizure”.

Seen in retrospect, it was the first manifestation of MS, her multiple sclerosis condition, not diagnosed definitively until 2012.

Read more: 1985 – Art, Visitors and a Holiday