Sally-Part 83. ANOTHER WOMAN MARRIES AN IDIOT ! PART 1. A REALLY CLAPPED OUT CAR, OUR WEDDING AND THE START OF OUR HONEYMOON !

SHIRLEY AT TWENTY ONE. STRUTH LADS ! LOOK AT THAT SMILE !

WELL! WELL! WELL! SHIRLEY HAS INSISTED ON THE UNEXPURGATED VERSION ! TAKEN AFTER A FOUR MILE WALK TO SANDWOOD BAY WHICH LIES JUST BELOW CAPE WRATH AT THE TOP OF SCOTLAND !

September the twentieth and suddenly it's dark at quarter to eight!

So with gales and rain lashing down and Josh Groban's  2007 AWAKE TOUR dvd blasting out in stereo with Shirley singing  and dancing along with an almost exclusively female audience of twenty thousand plus, I've sat down in an overwhelming riot of sound to compose my thoughts to tell you about my wedding and honeymoon !

And that has made me wonder who I've spent months writing for.

Well, apart from a forty year quest to make my wife laugh and I've succeeded with that, I wanted to make my children laugh as well and I've succeeded partially with that !

I wanted to make my brothers laugh too and instead created a monster of mistrust and loathing !

Still, two out of three's not bad !

But mostly I wanted to leave my grandchildren and later generations a glimpse into another time and leave them wishing that I was still here or that they'd known me, just the way I now wish I'd known about my grandparents and earlier generations.

All I have from the past is a heartreaking letter from my grandmother's first husband who, knowing he was dying and leaving two young children, poured his soul out to  her and frankly, I've only been able read it once ! You can now read it in Part 92.

Mainly I've written for my ridiculously smug ego which thinks it's found a home inside a genius and I agree with it !

ONE SMUG EGO AND IT'S GENIUS OWNER !

Before I get back to my tale, the News keeps telling the world about a lady who has just given birth to a thirty five week baby without knowing she was pregnant!

All I can say to anyone who believes her is.... REALLY ? Are you THAT gullible !

Then how come I've seen women interviewed who know the moment that they've conceived ?

My daughter Gemma's one of them and she not only knew THE MOMENT but phoned her mum, regardless of the time to let her know as well and I really mean THE MOMENT, not three months after nursing her secret !

In fact Gemma would phone all of her many girlfriends immediately that 'Congress' had finished to tell them that she MIGHT be pregnant !

And listening to them talk even recently, I think that they probably ALL still phone each other after all such events occur, which for the young and desperate-to-be-pregnant probably happens many, many times a day !

And judging from the ridiculous number of times her mobile's tone of a steam train hooting goes off, they must all be at it like rabbits, despite her insisting that it's 'work' contacting her !

YEH ! YEH !

And we'd have to go round, even though it was three in the morning with Champagne to toast the just-divided egg, trying not to waken her knackered husband who was laid out in the St. John's Ambulance Text Book's recovery position, snoring his head off and drooling saliva over his pillow !

None of this seems to be remotely about my honeymoon but the truth is, shock and horror, Shirley was three months pregnant when we got married and set off in a rubbish left-hand-drive FIAT 500 to drive a thousand miles to the South of France !

FIFTY OF SHIRLEY'S HARD EARNED POUNDS BOUGHT ME ONE OF THESE PILES OF RUST ! IT NEARLY MADE SHIRLEY REALISE WHAT A MISTAKE SHE'D MADE ! NO ! NOT WITH THE CAR ! WITH ME !

Many of our newly emancipated generation were less than romantic and I certainly lacked any sense of grand gestures. This also seemed Shirley's way and in complete contrast to today's total wedding overkill we settled on a few friends at a registry office and a small party at my parents house.

I'VE SAID IT BEFORE AND I'LL SAY IT AGAIN...ONE LUCKY WOMAN !

All to be got through quickly and with as little fuss as possible !

In fact, I was barely out of childhood and had no sense of responsibility, which I think was fairly reflected in my mother's advice to Shirley on the night before our wedding, " Don't do it darling ! He'll never support you ! "

Charming ! My own mother !

WHAT ON EARTH DID SHE THINK SHE WAS DOING ?..... MARRYING CATWEASEL!

My father drove a brand new four litre ( That's BIG ladies and gays ! ) Jaguar and must have looked on in horror as Shirley leant me fifty pounds to buy the FIAT from a family friend who must have known I was buying a heap of trouble!

I got her to buy it by forcing her to believe that I could teach her to drive, a task beyond impossible and proven so when years later a professional driving instructor refused to turn up for a second lesson !

My father knew that we planned to meet him and my mother at their rented flat near Nice and advised me to have the car serviced by Fiat before we left.

So I booked it in and waited for over two weeks to get it back !

Like Main Agents everywhere, an incompetent mechanic did something wrong and the engine had to be sent away for urgent and expensive surgey which cost me all Shirley's honeymoon spending money !

Well I didn't have any !

Worse were the broken promises of the date I'd get the car back.

Service Reception staff are hired from a pool of exceptionally good liars and mine were from the top level as they reassured me with days to go that my car was virtually ready !

I eventually got it TWO HOURS before my wedding and so, crying because Shirley was now skint and I couldn't think how to tell my about-to-be wife and sweating buckets in my panic to appear calm I set out for a quick shower and my wedding !

Not one hundred yards down the road from the FIAT garage and I really wish I could write FIAT bigger and warn people never to trust an Italian, my car broke down with petrol pouring out the newly restored carburettor !

I think that the writers of the instalment of Fawlty Towers where Basil physically attacked his broken-down car must have been driving past me and got the idea when watching me beat mine whilst screaming expletives at the unmoving pile of rubbish !

I can't believe that the same models are now hugely expensive motoring icons, revered by motoring geeks the world over !

Just as I was about to collapse in a heap of helpless uselessness one of my brothers drove past on the way to MY wedding !

He got me home and after washing off the worst of the fuel and oil but still reeking of them I calmly met my fiance at the church altar ! ( Well OK, registry-office desk !)

I said nothing to her about the crisis and whilst wedding guests forced FIAT to fix the car and returned it to us for our drive to Dover for the morning ferry all of my parents' life-long friends, who actually made up the bulk of the guests at the party motioned at me and shook their heads in disbelief and offered Shirley their sincerest wishes that a miracle might happen and that I would get a job !

Shirley had quite a few friends there but I, truly friendless had no-one !

My father's closest friend had summoned us to his house to receive his largesse and whilst his wife slept, opened a specially bought cheap plonk which he didn't touch and handed me a lightweight envelope which I frankly hoped and thought probably contained a cheque for a couple of hundred pounds, as he was very wealthy and had promised my sister-in-law half his estate when the time came !

I know that 'Pride Comes Before A Fall !'

Add to that 'Greed' because when I opened it out slipped ten pounds !

And that's why, in contrast, I'm now reasonably generous with my gifts to newlyweds !

So off we went on what should have been the happiest day of our lives, only to have to stop every ten miles for me to tighten up various bolts that threatened to come undone !

Eventually, with me filthy and exhausted, we arrived at our motel in Dover where I spent 'til 2am with an AA man whilst my beautiful new wife lay alone, weeping quietly with unconsummated frustration !

Oh No I forgot ! She was already pregnant !

OK ! .....my beautiful new wife lay thankfully fast asleep, dreading the randy beast's return !

ACTUALLY I MARRIED HER NOT ONLY FOR HER BEAUTY BUT ALSO FOR HER COOKING, WHICH WAS A THOUSAND TIMES BETTER THAN MY MOTHER'S !