“I’ve been married 53 years, I have five children, and seven grandchildren. You can put that down”
“53 years, wow! What’s the secret to a successful marriage do you think?”
“Well…you just kinda get used to each other don’t you.”



Barbara was a colourful soul. She was dressed in colour coordinated accessories and had three charity badges on her hat. Her and her husband lead their local group for the Royal British Legion, organising and managing the collection boxes. All voluntary of course, both of them having retired some time ago.

"It’s a lot more work than people imagine. We have to start months in advance, preparing the boxes, and making sure they’re all distributed to the right places. After it’s all done then it takes time to sort all the money out.”

Barbara used to work as a bank teller for most of her working life. When asked whether she enjoyed the work she just shrugged, thought about it for a while and said:

“Well, it was the people that made it really. The job was a job, you know.”

She told me of her daily ordeal of getting to work, having to catch various buses and travelling some distance. She gets chauffeured around now (her words) - she can’t drive of course.

Barbara had just been visiting her husband at the hospital, nothing major she explained.


Humans of Leeds