Family Memories: Courtship and marriage

Mom and Dad had a very happy courtship. They used to go away for weekends to Eastbourne; and went down to Richmond, where they took a punt away for weekends as often as they could. They found a lovely secluded island in the Thames where they used to tie the punt up.

Their Island

Mom with mine.

This was taken at Eastbourne shortly after the war. I asked Dad if the mine Mom was standing on was live. He said "Probably"

Courtship

Mom’s grandmother was happy to see Mom settled and happy. Mom talks about a conversation about whether a couple was right for each other. Grandmother Mary Jane made a comment about it being when you feel it is someone with whom you could share a toothbrush. Mom’s comment was “Oh that’s all right then, we’ve done that many times.”

Dad's favourite picture of Mom, "Chorus Girl"

Punting

They were married on January 21, 1947 in a civil ceremony.

Mom and Dad honeymooned in Scotland, camping. They took their little car and toured around the Highlands. Here are pictures taken on their honeymoon.

Looks like a fun trip

The farmer who pulled them out

Mom on their honeymoon

Dad’s mother Doris Biddle was at first very unhappy with the marriage. Mom said she considered that Dad had married “beneath himself”. Also, Doris Biddle was very possessive of Dad, and resented that someone had taken him away from her. Dad was always puzzled by his mother’s attitude, as up until then she had liked Mom very much. However, after the wedding, Doris Biddle would not say a word to Mom. Mom said she would come down to give them their mail, holding the letters out between finger and thumb without a word. She said not a word until John was born a year and a half later. Then it was as if nothing had happened.
Housing was in very short supply in England right after the war. Their first home was a house boat on the River Thames, moored at the bottom of Doris' garden, named “Minx”. On weekends they would travel up and down the river Thames. John was born while they lived on this boat.

Minx festooned with nappies.

With Baby John

Dad was very good at building and designing things. He built a small canoe (We would call it a kayak), but said it did not work very well for shopping from the Minx. So he built a “pram”, which was a small metal rowboat. He was “testing the displacement” he said, with four friends, and it was all going well until somebody laughed. Mom caught it all on camera.

The "Pram


The Canoe

They were always very happy, and I don’t remember them ever fighting. Mom tells a story though that shortly after they were married they had an argument, she never said over what, and Mom went home to her Grandmother. Mary Jane sent her right back, saying “You made your bed now lie in it”.

Staines, flooded

In 1947 there was a huge flood in England. Dad talks about taking a boat around the streets and trying to salvage things from the house. They spoke about several feet of mud left behind to be cleaned up after the waters subsided.

Dad’s first job was at a hospital in Slough. This was right on a very busy highway and there were a lot of car accidents. He had to perform all kinds of surgeries and treatments on his own as there was no help available. He and another resident were the only doctors on staff, and they were very busy. He said after they left, the medical staff grew to 9. He spoke about some of the terrible accidents, especially one, to a motor cycle rider. A lot of people rode motor cycles because gas for cars was so expensive, and rationed. Dad talks about this fellow coming in terribly injured and Dad called all over trying to get a surgeon to come and treat him, but no one was available, so Dad ended up doing the operation himself, successfully.
Mom told me that while he was there he was noticed by an orthopedic surgeon and offered an opportunity to train for a specialty in orthopedics. He could not take advantage of the opportunity though because he had to enter the army and fulfill his obligation.

After the war, Dad had to enter the army to complete his army service. He served for two years at Sandringham. Mom and John went with him. As a doctor he was given the rank of Captain. He talks about the snobbery, and how officers’ wives could not socialize with enlisted men’s wives, which he thought silly.

He talks about two regiments, one of them an army unit which he had little use for, saying all they talked about was hunting and other things he found boring. The other unit was Engineers, and he found these people much more to his liking. Dad was always ready to learn something new, and became the only army doctor to get a license to drive a tank.

Dad had little patience for the silly rules and pompous bureaucracy of the army. He tells the story of a camp inspection. Each barrack unit had to have a “fire bucket”. Unfortunately, there were not enough of these on the base, so, as the inspecting officers were slowly making their way from hut to hut, someone was running along ahead of them, moving the fire buckets along and placing them so that there was a fire bucket in each hut as they came to it.

Mom tells the story of Dad getting ready to go on some kind of training exercise. The list of items to be packed included a “housewife”. Mom thought that meant she could go, but no, a “housewife” was a small sewing kit.

Soldiers (Dad is the one with the pipe)

Dad said a dog they named Smudge “attached
himself” to them while they lived at Sandringham. Dad said he cost him a lot of money because he chewed up the officers’ boots.