Mr & Mrs

The day had come. Chris(tine) and I had first met (1974) when I was working at St. George's Hotel in Langham Place next to the original  Old BBC Broadcasting House. She was searching for a new career path having done a bit of a few things including qualifying as a Norland Nanny and had worked for the likes of Jilly Cooper (that must have been a chaotic household). She had also been over to the USA for a spell as nanny and somewhere I have in my head, it was connected with Weight Watchers.

Seemingly the nanny life was not for her and so it also turned out as she started work as a receptionist in the hotel. I don't remember if it lasted one or two weeks before she threw the towel after repeated run-ins with the Reception Manager. Like all airlines and hotels, overbooking was standard practice but the St. George's, while part of the huge Trust House Forte  Group (THF) with masses of hotels in close proximity, was very small and attracted a somewhat special clientele.- very well off businessman, not well known and involved in things like diamonds, oil ... Anyone who knows a little about Roland "Tiny" Roland and his Lonrho company will know what I mean.  Anyway Chris refused to lie when she had to turn away a customer who had booked using the excuse the bathroom had flooded and the room not occupy-able.

She promptly left and that was the end of the very brief contact for about two years, until 24 November 1976 when out of the blue she phoned me in London. She had my parents phone number and had through them got mine. I was working in London that week at the St Ermins Hotel in Westminster, and we met at Toad Hall in Battersea.

Chris was in the process of exiting a long engagement to someone I quite coincidentally knew from school days, and now working as PA for an American oil company Koch Oil in their very small tanker charter division office on Park Lane. (Swish Co. Xmas Dinner Dance on 17/12/76 in Grosvenor House!). Koch is nowadays the 2nd biggest USA company in private hands. And of course the Koch brothers were responsible for Donald Trump and more importantly for me, Brexit and the rise of the whole populist, fascist Tory/Leaver movement in the UK.

Things developed fast, probably much too fast. I suspect I must have thought at the ripe old age of 22 and just out of my first real, and 3 year long very special, relationship that I would not find anyone ever again. Perhaps Chris, two years my elder had the same fears.

On her 25th birthday (26/2/77) we were officially engaged as one did in middle class England with an announcement in the Daily Telegraph and "all that stuff".

On 6th May Chris left her job, celebrated for some reason at El Vino's Wine bar in Fleet Street (I guess Park Lane not exactly after work bar district). We both moved to Plaistow, West Sussex and I learnt for the first time in my working life what commuting meant even if I didn't have to do it daily and more often than not, by car rather than train.

On my mother's birthday, the marriage ceremony. Start to finish 247 days or 8 months and 6 days, and I was still 22. I was still in late puberty and thought that girls were made of Sugar and Spice and everything nice!

There was an official photographer on the day and I didn't get to keep half the album when the marriage ended but anyway by far the best was taken by brother-in-law and Bliper David who supplied me with this copy recently. Thank you, David... copyright etc and the fee will be paid in due course!

As an Extra, the only official photo I have which I inherited from my father many years later. Standing in front of Chris' family home which we were about eight years later (again with the tremendous help and assistance from David) able to buy and move in to with the children.
It shows left to right:
John & "Steve", Chris' parents
Johnny Porter my childhood best friend and Best Man
The happy pair
Joan, a friend of Chris' and Bridesmaid
Antoinette & Paul, my parents.

I am sure all the missing detail will be slowly filled in with time and lots of scanning and head scratching but as I post this on 31st December 2017, I just want to say that despite perhaps an unthought through adventure which ended in tears, there were bad times, good times and great times.

But above all, there were priceless times and these were the births of our two wonderful children, Kate in 1980 and Jonathan in 1984. Alone to have been blessed with these two was more than a good reason to have had the marriage.