Tuesday, January 8th .....

Today is our anniversary; in fact, I celebrate two anniversaries on January 8^th.  On this day, in 1951, the MV Georgic docked in Sydney and I arrived in Australia, leaving a cold and depressed post-war Scotland behind.

Fifteen years later, Marilyn and I were married in a very traditional ceremony in Corrimal, NSW.  They were all traditional ceremonies in those days.  I don’t think marriage celebrants had been invented and to have a wedding on a mountain-top or a beach was unheard-of.  For years, Marilyn had been building up her ‘Glory Box’, or ‘Hope Chest’ with all the things she might need for married life – linen, cutlery, pots and pans, and so on.  Her father had been saving-up; he had two daughters and he knew he would be responsible for the cost of two weddings. 

In our circle, the reception would normally be held in the church hall and the Women’s Guild might cater.  Reception Centres were springing up for those who wanted something a little posh, and some of the larger hotels were sniffing around a new market.  I had been doing some casual work at the local Masonic Club so we opted for that.  I think my father was a little put-out.  He had never drunk and disagreed, on principle, with licensed premises but he had already tagged me as a bit strange so went along with it.  In fact, he probably blamed Marilyn.  He used to say, jokingly, that I never drank until I met her.  The other bad habit she taught me, apparently, was to eat tinned spaghetti. 

It was a very innocent time in 1966.  All our friends were getting married (remember Sherbet!) and we all conformed without any hesitation.  Another song I remember is Little Boxes (on the hillside and they’re all made out of ticky-tacky) but that questioning of conformity came later.  The ‘normal’ honeymoon was to go to the Gold Coast or Katoomba but we booked on a cruise.  Everyone thought we were super-rich, and/or pretentious.  I’ve told this sad story before, I know, but, in short, the ship had a fire, the cruise was cancelled and we ended up on a 14-day coach tour from Sydney, to Melbourne, Adelaide, the Murray Valley and Canberra.  We arrived back in Sydney with just loose change in our pockets, but what fantastic memories.

The mathematically-minded can work out that we’ve been married 47 years.  I tried once to work out how many different homes we’ve had in that time and I it’s certainly more than 15.  We’ve bought and sold four homes and lived in school houses for 23 years. We haven’t put down roots anywhere and today we’re nomadic.  Clearly we stopped conforming on the day of our marriage, gently at first but gaining momentum as life went on.  It’s been a wild ride.