Hullo Old Home

[brian daley]

The Wedding
I left the Acclivity on the 4th of September 1968, I still had the bulk of my pay off from the Demeterton, plus my pay off from the lard boat, so I was going home like jolly jack ,a kit bag full of presents and a pocketful of tin.
I spent a couple of days at home with the folks and got to see most of my relatives in the short time I spent there. I could’nt wait to get down to Oswestry, Roger, the guy I sailed with just 12 months ago, had asked me to be his best man and I wanted to find out just what was expected of me.
I took the train from Central Station ,it was pulled by a diesel engine, dirty and smelly ,you felt you were really travelling on them. I had to change at Birkenhead, and then it was off down through Cheshire and parts of Wales. I was fascinated by how little the countryside had changed ,it was harvest time and we could see the combine harvesters reaping the corn ,leaving the fields looking like carpets of gold.
I forget how long the journey took ,but it was relaxing just watching the different
fields and the hive of activity taking place within them.
Roger met me at the station in Oswestry and we walked to his house .
I was situated in Park Avenue ,which was full of tall ,three storey houses. They were late Victorian and seemed very spacious. It was one of the last roads in the town and the road we walked from the town on, led on past the avenue up into the countryside.
Rogers family were all at home when we arrived and I was given a very warm welcome. His dad seemed a lot older than his mum and his younger sister ,who was about 15 was very pleasant. I was shown to my room ,up on the third floor and I had a good wash and unpacked before going down to join the family for dinner.
The meal was most agreeable, we were sat at a large old fashioned table with plenty of room. The napery was perfect and the whole room was filled with gifts that had been brought home by the sailor son, the dining room window faced west ,and it was very soothing to watch the sky change from blue to gold as the sun got lower in the western horizon.
After dinner ,Roger, his dad ,and I strolled down to the town to visit their favourite watering holes where I was introduced to lots of different people. There was a warmth amongst those people for strangers and it made for a lovely night.
Closing time found us being tipped out at 10.30pm and we made our way back to Park Avenue beneath the light of a Harvest Moon.
Rogers mum had a fine spread ready for when we got in ,and Roger had a surprise for me too. As we sat eating our supper, he handed me a little booklet. It’s cover bore the legend ,”The Duties of a Best Man”. He pointed out my duties, the best man paid for the wedding service, the hire of the morning suits for the groom ,father and ushers and the wedding limousines. At first I thought it was a joke, how wrong could I be. Roger had me scheduled to go to the hire shop and organise the suits , and then to the wedding car place to hire three big Humber Super Snipes, and then, finally, to the little church in Gobowen were I paid for the service. Thank god I’d had a good pay off.
Apart from the expenses, I was having a great time down there ,Roger had left the Merchant Navy and had trained up as a refrigeration engineer with Prestcold. He now had a van and was doing servicing on the commercial side ,shops and factories , he said he was making a fortune on the side because he quite often condemned fridges and sold the owner a new one, he would take the old one away, no charge, he would take it to a lock up garage ,where he would fix it and then sell it on to another shop for a good price.
His parents were ignorant of that little racket ,but he was putting his ill gotten gains to good use, he was buying a beautiful little house in Shrewsbury on a new estate right by the River Severn.
As the days passed by I got to like Oswestry and the surrounding areas ,Roger would borrow his dads little Austin A40 and chauffeur me around the hills and dales of Shropshire. The farm roads were nowhere as busy as they are today and we could stop almost where we liked to get out and enjoy the scenery.
We had a wedding rehearsal in the middle of the week and I met Pearl and her maid of honour for the first time. The church was ancient,11th century I think . It had ,originally, a thatched roof ,but now had large lichen covered grey tiles. Inside there were whitewashed walls and a few wall mounted tablets honouring the dead of both world wars. The altar was a very simple affair ,a brass crucifix and two large brass candlesticks gleamed in the light from the side windows.
The rehearsal went off fine and we all retired to a pub nearby. This little inn was a curiosity, it lay across the border of England and Wales, and on a Sunday the door on the Welsh side had to remain locked and the bar that side could not serve anything ,needless to say the bar on the English side would be filled to bursting with locals, and tourist’s.
Saturday soon dawned and then it was a case of getting all the strings drawn together, suits to be collected from hire shop, check that the limo’s were all o.k., make sure that I had the ring, and, finally, to see that Roger was turned out immaculately.
The whole thing went with the precision of a finely made Swiss watch, I felt ripped off about the limo’s though, they were Humber Super Snipes,but they had seen much better days. The only thing that held the body’s together was the paint. The upholstery was tattered and torn and the springs in the seats were knackered.. They were at least 30 years old and were showing signs of rust on the bonnet and mud guards. The wedding ceremony passed without a hitch and,after the photographer had taken all the usual shots, it was off to the barracks at Oswestry Depot for the wedding feast. Pearls father had done the catering, he was a caterer to the Army and the spread was excellent. The drink flowed steadily and soon it was time for the speeches, I was a bit short of material on Roger, he had’nt told me much about himself when we sailed together and had been busily occupied with getting his new house ready to move into in the run up to the big day,so I hoofed it ,made it seem like he was an old buddy;it went down well.
The meal was over and the pubs were just opening, most people had come some miles to be at this “do” and it seemed a shame to split up just when things were warming up. I suggested that we retire to a pub in the centre of Oswestry to have a few drinks before setting off home. Most of the guests were family but there some who had come up from Warwickshire, Birmingham and Swindon ,as well as other places. We filled the pub to overflowing and I had had a tarpaulin muster of all the guests that were there, £2-10.s. for the men and £1-00p for the ladies, it was more than enough and by the time the clock struck 8 pm someone suggested we go back to Rogers house for a bite to eat. There was a lot of money left in the kitty, enough to buy more than 3 crates of ale and a case Babycham . I was still dressed in my hire suit and felt terribly old fashioned, if we went to Roger’s I could at least get changed.
There were three reception rooms on the ground floor at Rogers, and there were ,roughly speaking ,three sets of age groups. We parked the Mums and dads and grandparents in the front room , the over thirties in the middle room ,and then the singles took control of the back room . There were so many girls there that I felt like a kid in a candy shop. I was acting as DJ and Roger (who was by now heading off with his new wife to their honeymoon hotel) had a fairly decent collection of records. You could feel the evening start to swing and I could see that there were more than a few beauties that I could chance my arm with, first of all I had to get changed. I put on Billy Rose’ “The Stripper” and started getting my kit off to the music, there was a blonde girl at the back of the room who showed her distaste by giving me a scathing look, the other girls were egging me on. One of the married women had joined us and she made it quite plain that she liked what she saw, that blonde though, she was like ice. I got out of the room with just my boxer shorts on and then went and put some jeans on. As time passed by more and more people had to leave to catch their trains home, soon there was just me and one of the ushers, guy called Barry ,and half a dozen girls. I was feeling well mellow and wanted to see if I could tempt any of the ladies. The night was warm and the sky velvet black so I suggested that we walk to the racecourse and see the stars at night. We were all squiffy and some of the girls were quite happy to be kissed ,if I kissed one then another would want a kiss too. When we got to the racecourse ,we had a game of hide and seek, I would get hidden with one of the girls and we would start cuddling , only for another girl to find us and say that it was her turn now. They loved it but it was a bit too wearing for me. Besides, that blonde girl was there and she was disgusted at our shenanigans. Realising that I was on a hiding to nothing, I threw the towel in and suggested that we go and have a nice cup of cocoa before going to bed.

Next morning I was up with the lark and had a shower before going down to breakfast. When I arrived in the kitchen , that blonde was there, turned out she was Rogers cousin ,and very nice too. Her mum and dad were with her and she told me that she lived in Birmingam and had come back from her Spanish holiday just yesterday morning ,they would be leaving for home just after breakfast and she made it plain that she would be quite happy to see the back of me ,ah well, you can’t win them all. I travelled back on Monday and Rogers mum and dad made me promise that I would come and see them again when I was next at home. Barry the usher asked if I could show him some of the night life in Liverpool and we made a date for the following Friday. I would have a few days to recover from my sojourn, and then I must think in terms of getting another berth.