The Day of the Donkey Derby

The day of the Donkey Derby dawned bright and clear: a perfect June day. When the telephone rang at seven o'clock in the morning, Dr Tom Lavenham, GP in a quiet market town, had no idea that it was to be a day he would remember all his life. The telephone call was from his son, announcing the imminent arrival, alone, of the young woman who was to be the Lavenhams' daughter-in-law. Such a situation can often be taxing to parents, but this one was doubly so, for not only had the Lavenhams never met Juniper, who was a pædiatrician doing a course in London, but she happened to be Chinese. As he…