SUNDAY IN MEMORY LANE (Episode 3)

It was such a magical time for me....

Episode 1
Episode 2

Travelling to London from the Essex coast for work every day was a gruelling affair.
It meant getting up before 6am and racing through town to catch a train that would get me to the office close to Wapping Wharf by 9am.

As was my habit, I would arrive at the station scrubbed, with curlers in my hair. I would do my make up and hair while I chatted to fellow commuters.
I really loved my job as a bilingual secretary. I was fast approaching 19 years of age and loved to sit with the sun shining through the office window, glinting on my new engagement ring as I typed.
I always worked through lunch because I enjoyed the peace when the rest of the staff would go to the local pub.
It was my responsibility to monitor the switchboard and entrance security console. The only other person in the building between 1pm and 2pm was our elderly tea-lady who was a much loved member of the director's family. She would insist on making me thick wedges of buttered toast and we would eat them together with rich milky coffee.

One boring Wednesday, we were munching and gossiping when we heard someone coming down the corridor towards us. We both jumped with shock because neither of us had buzzed the door open. I dashed to the office door and flung it open. The tea lady and I stood stock still in shock. There before us was an Indian gentleman, dressed ornately in rich brocade with many jewels, necklaces and an ornamented turban.

"Can I help you?" I asked somewhat shaken.
"Oh I am sure you can!" he replied smiling broadly and said that he had come to deliver a message. He reached for my left hand, smiled again, as he saw the ring on my finger and placed a tiny folded piece of paper into my palm.
He folded my fingers over it and said "You will marry soon and bear a child, a very important child."
He went to turn and leave but the tea-lady asked him a question just as the phone rang. I ran away to the switchboard to answer the call.

When I found the tea-lady she was in her kitchen looking pale and worried. I asked her where the strange gentleman was and she mumbled that he had left.
"But I did not buzz the door, Annie!" I cried as I ran down the stairs to check the entrance. There was no sign of him anywhere. Annie left the office early that day and never did tell me what he had said to her that had unnerved her so badly.
I dared not mention this strange visitor to anyone else in the office because I could not explain how he had gained entrance or exit from the property. Security was strong, no alarms had been activated. It was most disturbing.

More disturbing still was the little scrap of paper that had been given to me. As I carefully unfolded it I immediately recognised the handwriting. It was Tony's.
It had an address on it that I did not recognise bar the fact that it terminated with Glasgow.

When I showed it to Tony, that evening, he looked very confused. He said that it was indeed his writing and that the address was his home address where his parents still lived.
We were both absolutely baffled but unable to fathom how the strange man could have come to possess it.
We decided to let it lie, but we never forgot it. How could we?

The six months trial period, previously demanded by my father, was coming to a very happy end. We agreed to Tony's parents' wish that we should marry in a Catholic Church and, very nervously, we called on the local Priest to make arrangements. He was a darling of a man and fully understood that although I was not a Catholic I was very keen to marry in his Lady of Light RC Church.
We booked the wedding for the 10th of July 1971 and I set about making bridesmaid dresses, my own dress and all the arrangements for the reception.

The entire week of my wedding was booked for guests to stay in the holiday homes my extended family owned in Jaywick Sands because many were coming from Glasgow and one sister was planning to travel all the way from Jersey where she was working.

As the months tore by, barely a week would pass without Tony supplying something he had acquired for the house. We very soon had such a sweet and homely place to live, thanks to his scrounging abilities.
He had bought an old work van, nicknamed the Black & Yellow Peril because it made such a tremendous noise that I could hear him coming home when he took the last roundabout half a mile away!
I would turn the cooker on at that point every evening.

The day of the wedding was so nerve wracking that I thought I would pass out several times. My future father-in-law was doing back flips in the garden, my mother was fussing over my hair and dress before mopping her tears of joy. There were people coming and going at such a rate that I wondered if we would all get dressed in time for the church.

Tony and all his friends had been out for the obligatory Stag Night and were looking much the worse for wear. Jai had lost his false teeth down the toilet in the pub and was totally unable to smile. Tony could not stop laughing and Dylan, our puppy now grown, was overjoyed to have so many people milling around the house. Nicki, his cat companion, was sitting on the outside toilet roof, aloof and distinctly unimpressed.

The cars containing all the guests left one by one and I had a few minutes with my father before a lovely black Mercedes decked with white ribbons arrived to take us to the Church.
My father was more concerned about getting the refrigerator he had bought for our wedding present installed and running.
"I don't know how you have managed without a fridge!" he exclaimed and I giggled, reminding him of my childhood days in Islington, London, where we had a slab of marble to store perishables. Fridges were yet to become a regular feature of domestic life and I had learned a lot from those days in the 1950s.

As we walked down the aisle, shaking in my shoes, I was very surprised at the number of people who were there. Everyone looked so smart and smiley. Then I saw Tony, suited and booted, standing next to his brother Pete, grinning as if being in Church was the greatest hoot he had ever experienced.

It was a beautiful ceremony and, as we returned to the sunniest of days outside, we were showered with confetti and rice, photographed in various combinations of guests with much hilarity and fun.

Image: Tony and I with his parents outside Our Lady of Light RC Church, Clacton on Sea Essex.

We held the reception in the function room of a local public house and my father had put some money behind the bar for the first few drinks all around.
I felt really blessed.
We cut the cake, we did the first dance and we made a point of speaking to everyone who was there.
It was a brilliant evening and to my amazement, considering the number of guests, there was no trouble!
Tony and Pete provided a taxi service, ensuring that all the guests got home or to the bungalows in Jaywick where they were staying. Finally we staggered through our own front door absolutely exhausted at about 2am.

"Have you eaten anything?" Tony asked me.
"Oh no! I haven't had time, have you?" I replied.
"I am bloody starving!" He declared.
So I made us fried eggs and chips in commemoration of the night we met,
only a year and a half before.