Your parents courtship

My mum was a nurse in an American hospital in Palestine. My dad was in the Palestine Police during the war. I’m not sure of the details of how they met. They married in Jerusalem in 1942 and my brother was born a year later.
In 1945 they had to leave and came to England and I was born 5 years later. They were married for 42 years until my dad died.

My parents met on the bus going to work. He was a Catholic from the south she was a Protestant from the north so it wasn't straightforward.

My father was a classical musician. At the beginning of the war he was in the army, on searchlights, but he wasn't a practical man and probably pretty hopeless at that job. Eventually the army gave him a motorbike, a gramophone and a pile of records and told him to go and entertain people at various military stations.
So one evening in early 1944, my mother, who was doing a hush-hush job in the WAAF, noticed that there was to be a lecture recital at the RAF station and she and a couple of colleagues (one became my godmother) decided they might as well go.
After the event, they thought they'd ask this scruffy musician to have a drink. And... my parents married in August 1944, I was born the following July.
Truthfully, they weren't really compatible and I'm not sure the marriage would have survived. But my father died at 60 and my mother later found her true love in her 70s!

I loved every one of those stories, some bringing a tear to my eye. I wish I knew more about my parents courtship. Don't know how they met. There are no wedding photographs, although I understand that they married on 2 September 1939. Pa was posted to Poonah a few days later. His mother (whom he adored), thought that he was marrying beneath him. She was an opera singer, his father conducted choirs. I do not think that my parents marriage was made in heaven. The screaming and shouting and door slamming (mostly from my mother) cannot have made this lovely man very happy. But they stuck it out - I presume that was the done thing in those days.

My parents met before ww2 when mum was a clippie. He asked her to dance at The Palais. Then he went of to be a Royal Marine and she joined the ATS
1945 she was getting off the tram and her high heel got stuck in the cobbles. He rescued her. They married in 1947 and remained in love till the end of their days. Very different in many ways, disagreed on some things. She a free spirit him more conventional but it worked 💙💖

My Parents meet as teenagers mum was 15 and dad 16 at a Street VJ party. My mum was there with her little sister and her friend who lived in that Road.
Dad wanted to walk her home, but she told him she had her little sister with her, so he offered to walk her home first, then shot back to walk mum home. They were married for 61 happy years , and gave us a happy loving childhood, still miss them both.

My mother and father were both brought up in a Welsh coal mining village. They met on the train to school. My mother always thought she came from a family superior to my father’s. How and why they decided to marry, I have no idea. They never spoke about it, or about anything personal to us, their children.

dotpocka

small city everyone knew each otheer he was 2 yearsb older got pregerant in a other statescared when home courted mom till she became 20 then married her teh went into state cops never found who the other girl was i know she was irish catholic(veerry strict) sent to a nun run school for girls in trouble
i do know mom was rockabilly girl and drove town with her siamese cat on the back of the car seat and she dressed to the ninies till the day she died.after they divored 10yrs later married step dad who was wonderful they all knew each other since in7=8yrs old

I'd love to have seen her.
She sounds quite a girl!

My exes grandparents met when he was a patient in an Indian hospital.

They married, and she came here to live, just having the Madhur Jaffrey cooking programme to watch, for company, until she learnt some English.

It's quite amazing to me, how brave she was.

small city everyone knew each otheer he was 2 yearsb older got pregerant in a other statescared when home courted mom till she became 20 then married her teh went into state cops never found who the other girl was i know she was irish catholic(veerry strict) sent to a nun run school for girls in trouble
i do know mom was rockabilly girl and drove town with her siamese cat on the back of the car seat and she dressed to the ninies till the day she died.after they divored 10yrs later married step dad who was wonderful they all knew each other since in7=8yrs old

My mum and dad lived in council houses directly opposite each other in Erdington, Birmingham from the days they were born in 1923, my mum was a few months older than dad. They married at 19.

My parents met when he was a patient at the hospital where she was a nurse. The relationship appears to have been a bit on and off until it was obvious that I was going to make an appearance and my paternal grandfather, who ruled his ten sons and one daughter with a rod of iron, insisted on marriage, some four months too late. Not sure how happy they were as he fathered another daughter some two years later, but when he was diagnosed with cancer which killed him he came home to be nursed. Looking at the other wives in the family I can see how unsuitable my funny, politically minded, well educated mother must have been, but she never ever said anything to suggest that he hadn’t been the love of her life. She certainly had a very tough time - bombed out, no money, no family near - but she did a brilliant job and I was never less than a very loved and wanted child.

Groovy kind of love.

My parents met at art school in the 30s. He was 19 and she was 14. She fancied him straight away but it took longer to convince him that she was worthy of his notice. Her parents refused to let her get married, and then the war came so they were separated until 1943 when she was finally old enough to marry without consent. Once they were both demobbed they had to live with her parents until 1949, when they finally bought their own house. They stayed happily married until my father died in 1979.

It seems there were quite a few "potentials" who went by the wayside along the way.
Like my mum's handsome, swoon worthy boyfriend.

For my quiet and shy dad, holding the lapel of his jacket, even on his wedding day.

My Mum and Dad met on a station platform. They were both working for the same large company which employed so many people that they had never come across one another. Both Mum and Dad were engaged to other people and so had to break off their engagements. They almost made it to their Golden Wedding but not quite.

Wow.

surfingsal

My mother came from a wealthy family , unlike my father's family who had always struggled, they were delighted when my father asked my mother to marry him, my mothers parents were not happy at all, the more they said to my mother not to marry him the more she dug her heels in, they had a big society wedding the photos tell the story , mums parents barely smiling , dads parents extremally happy. They stayed together for 25 years until they met another couple and swopped partners , both couples then had 25 years of happiness! until my father, stepmother and stepfather died all within a week of each other. My mother is still going stron aged 95.

What an amazing story. Have never heard of swopping partners, but it obviously worked for them.

My mother came from a wealthy family , unlike my father's family who had always struggled, they were delighted when my father asked my mother to marry him, my mothers parents were not happy at all, the more they said to my mother not to marry him the more she dug her heels in, they had a big society wedding the photos tell the story , mums parents barely smiling , dads parents extremally happy. They stayed together for 25 years until they met another couple and swopped partners , both couples then had 25 years of happiness! until my father, stepmother and stepfather died all within a week of each other. My mother is still going stron aged 95.

Oh no, I haven't read that, Grandma70s
I'm no longer interested in literary greats, but I do know how fondly all the former nippies spoke about their time at Lyons.

They said it was a whole lifestyle, rather than just a job.

These are lovely posts to read.

My parents met when my mother opened the door of the outside office where my father had gone for an interview. She was the telephonist GPO trained which was highly regarded in the day. She was engaged to someone else when they met at work but when dad heard the engagement was off and asked her out. They were married for 49 years and just a few weeks short of their golden wedding before my father sadly passed away.

MissAdventure

Lyons corner.
Where the nippies used to work.

The residents in the homes I worked in spoke fondly of being nippies.

Have you read The Corner House Girls by Lilian Harry? Not great literature, but an interesting read about the world of the nippy.

I think a lot of situations have been covered.
Older widowers, different classes, now a secretary and "boss" (presumably)
Wolf whistlers, cyclists, dancers, and factory workers.

As Allira said, some beautiful stories on here.
It is one thing I regret not asking my mother more about my parents’ courtship. I assume they met at work as she was his secretary. It was just before the war and there are no pictures of the wedding. They only had fifteen years together as he died of a heart attack. She never remarried as she said she could never love anyone else as much though in my teens there was someone who asked her.

gulligranny

My parents met aged 17 when my Dad wolf-whistled my Mum and she fell off her bike. They got married in May 1940 and Dad's call-up papers arrived while they were on their honeymoon. I was born in October 1945, their only child.

They were very affectionate and fun, I had a great childhood. Dad died in 1993; Mum used to walk to the hospital (about a mile away) twice a day to take him some decent food. She died in 2004, sadly with dementia. Her last words to me - the first lucid thing she'd said for a long time - were "I'll soon be in heaven with my darling Harry".

Oh my word.
How poignant.

I so hope she was right, and they're reunited in some way.