“Maureen”
“What year did I get married? 1961, I suppose.
I’m a bit methodical. I like things organized.
The ship had sunk, the second one, and she wasn’t expecting him to come back, but he obviously survived. Then we heard by a man who had the only telephone up the road, he was a coalman, to say that your husband’s going to be at Liverpool Street Station.
Everybody got me dressed in a pretty dress and curled my hair, and I was about five, something like this, and we went on the train.
When we got off, I see this man running towards my mum, and my mum running holding my hand. He had some chocolate and he gave it to me, and I said, ‘I can’t have that. I mustn’t take chocolate from strangers.’ It was my dad.
Fate took a hand and it changed everything.
I used to go to Ilford to Phase Eight. It’s a bit sad because she’s saying, ‘Grandpa, what to say every day there?’
I absolutely loved that house. Never, ever thought we were living anywhere like that. Absolutely perfect for all the grandchildren. It was a proper kids’ paradise because there was so much ground. There were woods just to go and pick the bluebells. There were horses down the bottom of the drive where they used to go and feed them, and I loved it.
We had a Wurlitzer up there, which is where you played records on, like a jukebox. It was such a fun time. When anyone’s gone away or wants you to go out for lunches, they’d go round Nan’s and loved it to bits.
A wine called Hospice… and this was when the company was getting nearly 25 years old then. We called into this vineyard and tasted the wine, and there was a new lot being ready. There was the whole of the Hospice de Beaune. There were two barrels, and each barrel made 300 bottles.
So Grandpa bought the lot and he said, ‘I’ll have it bottled up and I’m going to have it for our 25th year at Great Yarmouth, as it was then, and I’ll give it to all my best customers.’
So we went through the process, the season, and when it was ready, one of the barrels I had in Oak Hall, and I used to put flowers on it and decorate it all out — the actual barrel that all these 300 bottles came from. Graham had the other barrel.
So we had these 600 bottles of wine for Christmas. We used to give our best customers, like Nike, Danielle, and Woolworths, a case of wine each.
I was the one that wrapped it all up nicely and made it look pretty.
So I said to Grandpa, ‘Right, now we’ve got this wine, what are we going to do with it?’
He took some over to Switzerland and said, ‘Do you know what? This wine is so good,’ and it was quite expensive, ‘I think we’re keeping it.’
And I said, ‘You’re joking.’
But we kept it.
We used to go to different European countries twice a year. We went to Tunisia, Dubrovnik, and Yugoslavia.
Whenever we went anywhere, he always made sure he danced with everybody. Always the first dance with me, then he danced with every woman in the place. Then when it was the last dance, he’d come back to me.
One particular night, I’d really had enough of it, and I’d been drinking and drinking and drinking. I was sitting there with my friend saying, ‘I’m not going to last much longer,’ moaning about Grandpa.
Then his cousin came over and asked me for a dance, so I said yes.
I left the dance floor nearly falling over because I’d had so much to drink. Grandpa didn’t like it one little bit.
So Harold took me out and sat me in his car while he went back for Grandpa. Grandpa was still dancing with all the girls.
I was sitting in this car and didn’t know whether I was in a car, a plane, or anywhere else.
The next day we had to get up early. I couldn’t get up. I didn’t know what to wear. My mum came round to look after the boys because we were going away on our own.
My mum said she’d never known me to wear the same dress twice, but I went out in the same dress I’d worn the night before. She said, ‘Your eyes were literally black.’
I put sunglasses on. I was in such a state.
We went to the south of France and Croatia, educating the boys, but we were very much people who loved gatherings. Every Christmas and every birthday, everybody got together. It was lovely.
Grandpa said he’d had enough of work and was going to retire. That was in 2005.
And I said, ‘The only way I’m going to leave this house is if you promise me you’re going to stop working.’
He said, ‘I can’t keep doing it. I’m going to get rid of it.’
Which he tried to do, but then went back the next day.
But it’s true, isn’t it? What goes around comes around.
I couldn’t wait to get married. Couldn’t wait to have a family. And for me, I got everything I could have wished for.”