How I came to be married

There were 4 or 5 of us doing Physics at Oriel in my year. If you had asked any of them who was the least likely to get married it would have been me. After we graduated I think they laid a bet on my being the last. And so it came as a surprise when in fact I was the first - it surprised me too!

I have recorded else-where some of my earlier would-be sweethearts. It didn't take very long for the penny to drop and thus I vowed never again to try to make a relationship happen. If God wanted me married I figured He could arrange it.

Cheam Baptist Church

There was a girl, a blonde, who played guitar in our Young People's meetings at NFC. She was several years older and thus out of my reach but I respected and looked up to her. I liked her guitar playing. When I started working for the BBC I found lodgings in Sutton and started going to CBC which happened to be where this girl went. So it was natural that I should look out for her and renew acquaintance. Being a nervous newbie I sat at the back - and saw a head of hair I thought might be her. When, after the meeting, this person turned around to leave I saw my mistake but also saw love at first sight. So I slyly followed her to the car park and found she drove a white Triumph Spitfire. I was duly impressed.

1960's Triumph Spitfire

I decided to find out where she lived so the following week after church I tailed her - me in my 600 cc two-cylinder horizontally-opposed Ami 8. It was some chase and I have to admit she got the better of me, but by driving up and down every street in the area I tracked the car down and thus narrowed the search to a couple of houses either side of where it was parked.

1971 Citroen Ami 8

Fervent in prayer and cognisant of my vow I allowed myself to go no further than as follows. I had a friendly yellow bicycle with 3-speed Sturmey Archer gears (sadly it was later stolen) and it was in the habit of going for rides at weekends. I dooned old clothes and, since in those days bell-bottom trousers could easily get caught in the chain, bicycle clips, and set out on an arduous ride planning my return to go past her lodging. I knocked on what I judged to be the correct house and, wonder of wonders, she came to the door to behold me in all my sweaty and bicycle-clippy glory.  My party piece was to invite her to "Sunday afternoon tea" (what else for a first date?). She declined. Then, being polite, conceded - perhaps another time? But I rejoiced - I had purposely made myself unattractive and yet had made first contact.

I do not think the afternoon tea ever happened but from then on we started a friendship. We had both started going to the church at about the same time and because our work took us to the area. We both had an interest in working with young people and ended up "teaching" in the JBF (Junior Bible Fellowship) for young teens. We sometimes prayed together for these youngsters. And many such sometimes later I blurted out that I loved her and asked her to marry me. She declined. She said she had never thought of me in that way and could we be "just good friends". I considered this to be impossible and so we started seeing less of each other.  I told her that if ever she changed her mind she could write me a postcard.

The postcard idea came from one of my father's much repeated stock of jokes. "If you get left behind just send us a postcard and we'll come and pick you up".

I had done what I allowed myself to do. The ball was now firmly in the court of Providence. All I could do was to wait. I do not know how long it was - it seemed an age but I doubt if it was more than a couple of months - before the postcard came. And so we were engaged and the rest, as they say, is history.

One of the things one has to do is to meet the parents. I rang my mother to say I was coming home for the weekend and could I bring a friend? Wisely she asked if it was a special friend... and later observed that she had always reckoned it would be like this - one moment unattached, the next moment a serious relationship and I'd come home with the girl of my dreams on my shoulder. As soon as they met Ali they approved of her, so that was the first hurdle crossed.

Came the time to ask her father for her hand in marriage. Her parents were then living in a rather grandiose house near Brockam, Surrey. We arranged to come for a meal and I did the necessary and in reply he asked if I "had the means to provide for her in the way in which she was accustomed" - to which I said I thought that I did, having a better than average job in the BBC. Doubtless to calm my nerves he then invited me to a drink. Not being used to being presented with a well stocked drinks cabinet I blurted out the only thing I thought was at all appropriate - a shot of Bénédictine - which was duly served and consumed. I think he had sherry and, whilst sipping mine, I wished I had chosen his.

I could (but will not) talk about the intense pleasure of even the slightest physical contact at Leith hill or how, once married, I solved the problem of which way up, and so forth.  Which makes me wonder - why is the older (at least British) generation so bad at communicating with the younger generation, or vice versa, about such things?

Is it not strange that it never occurs to the young to benefit from the possible wisdom of older folk who have so obviously gone through the process of growing up, falling in love, getting married, intercourse (hard for a young person to believe) and raising children. Indeed, when young, one imagines that any experiences the last generation might have had would be totally out-dated and not even worth asking about. Or one is too embarrassed. Do they think we have never had sexual feelings? Do they think we would laugh at their immaturity or naivety? Goodness - what do they think? Whereas when those of us who are older see youngsters struggling, we would gladly reach out a hand. But to be the instigator: for me it is once-bitten-twice-shy, I have been the fool and am now too cautious to go where angels fear to tread. If, should be, someone who qualifies as "younger" is reading this post, consider carefully. Folk older than you have had, still have, like passions...