A week before the wedding and the tension was mounting. Letters were flying backwards and forwards on a daily basis. It’s hard to realise in today’s world of instant communications that letters were the only way I could make contact with Edna; there was no telephone at Northfields farm. A letter I posted on the 28th July caused a rumpus and the bride to be got very upset. That summer one of my student friends John Whisson had got married to Kay, I had in fact been a groomsman. I went round to have a chat with John to try to learn exactly what the sequence of events was at the ceremony. I wrote all this down in the letter saying to Edna, “so you can see if it differs in any way from the way you expect things.” I then listed seventeen items, number 1 - “ Bride arrives at church, I am standing with Keith, as you come down the aisle you come alongside me.” Talk about trying to teach your Grannie to suck eggs. I carried on painfully in this vein. Item 16- “We then turn round, you link my arm and we jog into the vestry, the order being, Bride and Groom, Keith and June, two Bridesmaids, your parents, my parents.” Being rather stupid I had no idea how she would receive this, I thought I was being helpful. I haven’t got a copy of the angry reply that came back by return. The message was in effect, “tell John Whisson to sod off, we will organise our own wedding thank you, do you think I am stupid, and by the way what do you mean we will jog into the vestry, you’re not taking this seriously.” There was no luvvy duvvy ending this time, it finished off, “Look after yourself.” I was replying back on the 30th, creeping and crawling, desperately trying to pour oil on the troubled waters of Priors Marston. “ Oh my love you did sound cross in your letter today, allow me to explain, I put all that down so you would know how much I had gleaned of the wedding ceremony, so that this weekend we can talk things over and decide with the vicar exactly what we are going to do. I didn’t mean that we have to jog into the vestry, very sorry if I seemed flippant.” What a laugh, and all this just a few days before the real thing. We must have had a better postal service in those days to exchange insults that quickly. The arrival of the wedding of course meant the end of letter writing altogether. Edna’s final letter to me dated July 30th 1959 closed with the following lines, “Oh! Roll on tomorrow. Thank goodness we won’t be on this letter writing business any more- I hope.” Life would be very different from now and I couldn’t wait!
A few days before the wedding I received a letter from Mother. The opening sentences are typical of her with wings beating, I had been having problems with stomach ulcers.
“We received your letter today and we hope you will follow the advice of your Doctor, It has always been my one worry since you left home that something like this would happen sooner or later due to wrong feeding. Now it is up to yourself to see that you do eat the right food and get your stomach right again. Your Dad and I thank you for the kind words you sent to us. We have always looked on you as the greatest thing God has given us in our life together, and it has always been our aim to see you get a good start in life. We are also pleased that you have found such a girl as Edna and we shall be proud to call her our daughter. Bill you must never be afraid to come to us if you are in need, we shall always help if it is possible to do so. God Bless you always, Mum and Dad.”
The stomach problem soon resolved itself once I began to live in Worksop. The cure was obviously Edna’s cooking and the twenty miles or so between Greasy Annies shop and Carlton Road.
August 2nd dawned and I travelled down to Rugby by train. Edna’s father met me. That evening, the night before the wedding, Keith, Janet and I stayed at “The Hollybush.” the pub in the village. Most people were travelling on the day, so the wedding was held in the afternoon. I can’t remember what we did in the morning, pacing round and round I expect, I certainly was not allowed to see the bride. St. Leonards is a lovely small parish Church; Edna’s father was a bell ringer here. There is a photograph of Keith and a very nervous young man walking towards the church before the wedding. We took our places on the front row and the congregation slowly filled up behind us as the organ played. My Mother and Father came with Lizzie, Albert and Doris. All Edna’s family were there, her parents, Reg, Marjorie and a tiny Pauline, June and Les, Eric and Josephine. The bridesmaids were June, Josephine and a friend of Edna’s called Ann Ludlam. Ironically after that day she never saw Ann again, Edna often wondered what she had done to upset her. Edna’s friend from school Lorna came also several of my close friends from Sheffield, John Whisson and Kay, Frank Helm and Margot his girlfriend. Finally Edna appeared looking gorgeous, what a good choice I said to myself. After the ceremony there was the usual chaos of photographs, then over to the reception at the village hall. It all passed in a bit of a blur, I don’t know what sort of hash I made of the speech; I assume I did one. After the reception we hastily got changed ready to escape; we were off for an exotic four days in Weston Super Mare. Reg drove us to the station at Leamington closely chased by Keith and Janet, fellow students John Whisson, Frank Helm and their respective ladies. The lanes around Priors Marston are very narrow and high-speed car races are not to be recommended, thankfully we all eventually safely congregated on Leamington station platform. We finally got on the train; a few “Just Married” signs were daubed in lipstick across the carriage window before it slowly pulled away. What a relief we were on our own at last!
It was very late when we finally arrived in Weston Super Mare. We were staying at a boarding house on the sea front near the centre of the town. When we got there, the landlady was like an old mother hen, fussing round offering us this and that. We just wanted to get to bed immediately. No you’re wrong! We were absolutely exhausted and sleep was what we both wanted, in our case the second night was the first night. The weather was good and we spent most of it lazing on the beach. One evening we passed the local dance hall, there were loads of young people milling around waiting to go in. Edna went noticeably quiet for a period, I asked her what was wrong but she wouldn’t say. She told me much later she had been worrying that she was now a married women, getting old and the carefree days of dances and being chased had gone! I thought as much, luckily she soon snapped out of that mood. Incidentally she told me that those few days in Weston Super Mare became the first holiday she ever had. They passed quickly and the following Saturday we were on the train again, this time heading for Carlton Road Worksop and married life.
