Your parents courtship

My mums best friend started courting, and her boyfriend's cousin was my dad.

My dads mum never wanted him to marry my mum.
Her pictures in the wedding photos look very grim.

She has thrown a pint of milk of my dads suit just before they set off.

I think my mum and dad met when mum went to work in the village dad lived in. There are some photos of their courtship days, sadly no wedding photos.

I'm a bit vague about the details, but I think my parents knew each other from school. My father was fifteen months older than my mother.
After school my father had a career in the Royal Navy. Twice during his home leave he proposed. The third time, he told her that this was the last time he would ask and she accepted.
They married in December 1937.
Less than two years later the war started. So it was six years into the marriage before I was born and my twin brothers came along when the war was over. I was ten and my brothers were four when my father died, aged 39. Our parents had seventeen years of marriage, most of the time spent apart. My mother remained married to the memory of her beloved husband.

My parents met during WWII when they were both in the RAF. They would not have met if it hadn't been for the war as they lived about 200 miles apart.

I don't know much about my parents courtship but I do recall dad telling me that mum cycled almost 100 miles round trip to visit him in hospital when he was injured during his national service.

My Mum was working in her parents cafe and Dad was a customer that’s about all I know it’s a shame I never asked them more.

I’ve loved reading all these stories.

My parents met at university when they were 18. This was in the 1920s. My father never had any doubts, but when my mother was studying in Paris for a year (part of her degree course) she met a Greek man and they became an item, to my poor father’s great distress. However, it fizzled out and my mother returned to my father. They were happily married for over 60 years.

When my mother was involved with the Greek in Paris, her father was very suspicious and went over to France to inspect him, make sure he wasn’t already married etc (he wasn’t). My grandfather wasn’t very impressed with Paris - they didn’t have rice pudding!

My parents met in 1946 at RAF Sylt in Germany, where my father was a flight surgeon and my mother a Danish-English interpreter.

At a film show one evening my parents sat beside each other. Father offered mother a light. She was an inexperienced smoker and haddifficulty getting her cigarette to burn, whereupon he said, "Sook, lassie, dinna blow"

My mother, never having met a Scot before and having grown up in Copenhagen had absolutelyl no idea what he meant!

I have often wondered as my mother always seemed embarrassed when this incident was referred to, if he later on had employed that remark in a somewhat different context!

My Mum was receiving unwanted attention from a man in a pub.
My father stepped in ( bad mistake by the aggressor) my father was a big powerful man and had no problem throwing a punch.
Together with the fact that he hadn’t long been home from being a signalman on the Russian convoys it didn’t go well for the other man.

These are just wonderful tales.
Living social history bought back to life.

What lovely romantic stories of courtship in an age when life was simpler, or was it?

My parents met in South Africa, near Durban in the late 50s. My mother was a governess to the daughters of the High Commissioner, my father was an accountant with an offshore American Oil company. Their marriage banns were called in Rome. I was born 10 months later, but unfortunately my father had gone by then. He could never settle.

AuntieE

My parents met in 1946 at RAF Sylt in Germany, where my father was a flight surgeon and my mother a Danish-English interpreter.

At a film show one evening my parents sat beside each other. Father offered mother a light. She was an inexperienced smoker and haddifficulty getting her cigarette to burn, whereupon he said, "Sook, lassie, dinna blow"

My mother, never having met a Scot before and having grown up in Copenhagen had absolutelyl no idea what he meant!

I have often wondered as my mother always seemed embarrassed when this incident was referred to, if he later on had employed that remark in a somewhat different context!

It does sound rather suggestive, with the beautiful Scottish lilt.

I am loving reading these stories too. As I say, I wish I'd known about my own parents, but I do know about my in-laws. They were both members of a cycling club, but my FiL said the first time he set eyes on my MiL, he knew she was the woman for him because she could cycle as far and as fast as any of the men. They were just a couple of months away from what would have been their 70th wedding anniversary when my MiL died after a long battle with dementia.

People used to cycle miles, it seems, years ago.
My mum used to go up to london on her bike, and she lived in Essex.

Where had he gone to, escaped?
Did he come back?

My parents met in WW2.
My dad was a British soldier, captured as a POW in North Africa in 1942.
He was a persistent escapee. First from a camp in North Africa then from one in Italy, near Rome. He was eventually taken to another camp in Tuscany and made his third escape attempt off a moving train whilst en route to Germany.

He found a safe haven with a farmer and his family, who were also hiding a young Jewish man. As luck would have it, the young Jewish man could speak fluent English and was in the process of teaching the farmer's 18 year old daughter the language.
He took it upon himself to also improve my father's basic grasp of Italian.
As a result, my father and the farmer's daughter were able to communicate.
Love blossomed, and they married in September 1945.
They enjoyed a long and happy marriage of almost 50 years.

My mother was walking along with her friend and my dad and his friend gave them a whistle. They started talking and then going out. My dad bought her a very large box of chocolates. My mum didn’t have much and she was so pleased and then she found her very young brother had opened them and chewed a bit out of most of them! I found a letter written to my mother calling her his sweetheart and saying “when this is all over we can get married”. (Second World War) It brought tears to my eyes. The wedding photo is taken in my grans living room. A big artificial cake and my mum in a handmaid dress with my dad smiling away. Other photos taken outside church were so dark you couldn’t see much. They were married for over 60 years.

MissAdventure

Where had he gone to, escaped?
Did he come back?

He went to Texas, Iran, Jakarta, Hong Kong - all over where the company sent him.
He rarely reappeared in our lives. To this day, I've no idea why he was allowed to give me away at my own wedding. They never divorced, but were never a couple either.

Well, there's a tale worth knowing, if you ever could, isn't it?
Were you comfortably off, paid for by your father?
Inky if you dont mind saying.

I'm intrigued by the set up.

Only.
Not inky!!!

What a great topic for a thread MissA and so interesting to read everyone’s posts!

My mum lived in Blackpool. South Shore. Her brother was in the Royal Navy and one time on leave arrived with his ‘best mate’ in Portsmouth. Love at first sight. My dad went back down to Portsmouth, they wrote to one another every day. My soon to be dad suggested mum ‘move down’. Her dad my grandfather said ‘no way lady unless he marries you’. Mum wrote and a couple of days later a telegram proposal arrived delivered by the telegram boy on his bicycle. They’d known one another 2 months! Got married in a registrar’s office in Blackpool, dad’s parents attended - they lived in Ludlow. I was born 11 months later, on Portsmouth. They just missed their silver wedding anniversary when my dad died aged 47 from bowel cancer and mum was widowed at 45.

A few years passed. Mum on her own. Then met and married at 60. My ‘stepfather’ who is now 92, still living independently and sharp as a tack. Sadly mum died 7 years ago … just 2 years after their silver wedding anniversary.

MissAdventure

People used to cycle miles, it seems, years ago.
My mum used to go up to london on her bike, and she lived in Essex.

They certainly did. The pair of them cycled all over Scotland. Up the east coast right to John O'Groats, then back down the west coast.

Oh you have a really lovely stepfather, don't you?
From the wilds of Scotland, too?

I'm glad your mum had a second chance.
I wish my mum had.

Indeed MissA. He hails from a village in Wester Ross.
Mum said “you don’t mind taking a punt on a second marriage if the first one was happy”.