Just married

I was driven to the church by my best man, Simon, in his Triumph Vitesse - we thought we were so cool with the top down. This being a mill town in the West Riding of Yorkshire, we stopped off at a pub on the way for three swift pints of bitter - Dutch courage.

July 1979: the Sony Walkman had just gone on sale, McDonald's had just introduced the Happy Meal and everyone was worried about Skylab and where it would land. Earlier in the year it had snowed in the Sahara and Jimmy Carter had been attacked by a swamp rabbit. I remember people dodging out of the reception to watch that year's Wimbledon final between Bjorn Borg and Roscoe Tanner (Borg won in five sets).

It's extraordinary to think now that we left the reception at tea time and drove south in Gill's yellow Triumph Spitfire with no room booked for our wedding night. We pulled in to a motel and they'd finished serving food. They rustled us up a ham sandwich. The next day we caught a ferry for France. Might try blipping that in time but we took transparencies on our honeymoon and I haven't converted any of my old slides yet.

I regret now that we didn't have an evening party for our many friends who couldn't be invited.

Gill used to act quite a bit in those days and thought it would be a good idea if we learned our wedding vows rather than repeat them from the Vicar - no pressure then!

And yes, fellow blippers, I know I look so young. That's because I was snatched from my cradle, given the day off from big school and allowed to wear long trousers for the first time. I doubt if I needed to shave much at the time but I was already going grey - now completely white where it's still rooted.