Your parents courtship

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 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!

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 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.

A lot of parents seem to have met abroad.
Mine were both on the same little island.

I'm not sure love was involved at all. I suspect I was the result of a quick bunk up in the back of a car. They were teenagers and after I was born they both went off and I was fostered at the age of two weeks.

Ohhh, that's not the greatest start, is it?
Do you know anymore about your parents, at all?

My Mum was tall for her generation (b.1931). 5ft 10in at 12 years old she felt silly and gawky playing street games with her friends and neighbours and always felt the odd one out.
She worked in Woolworths after leaving school and became firm friends with another girl working there. Mum was at her friends house one Saturday afternoon getting ready to go to the cinema.
My Dad turned up unexpectedly as Mum's friend had been a school friend of his. He had just been demobbed from National Service and after losing his parents at a young age had no-one to come home to. He thought he would drop in on his old friend for something to do.
At 6ft 2in he was tall and good looking. He went to the cinema with both girls and asked to see my Mum again the next day.
She once told me she knew her prince had come.................

My mother's visa was running out from what I recall.

My parents had their first date at a summer Saturday night hop when she was 14 and he was 16.
They married at ages 19 and 22, and were together married for 61 years.
Tempestuous but together.

SuperTinny

My Mum was tall for her generation (b.1931). 5ft 10in at 12 years old she felt silly and gawky playing street games with her friends and neighbours and always felt the odd one out.
She worked in Woolworths after leaving school and became firm friends with another girl working there. Mum was at her friends house one Saturday afternoon getting ready to go to the cinema.
My Dad turned up unexpectedly as Mum's friend had been a school friend of his. He had just been demobbed from National Service and after losing his parents at a young age had no-one to come home to. He thought he would drop in on his old friend for something to do.
At 6ft 2in he was tall and good looking. He went to the cinema with both girls and asked to see my Mum again the next day.
She once told me she knew her prince had come.................

This is lovely.
So ordinary, but so special.

My parents met at a dance hall it was in 1950. My mum described my dad as tall and handsome like a model from Burtons. My dad said my mum was a little lady so pretty and slim.
They married a year later and planned to live in my dads parents house until they had their own.
They finally moved into their new council house 12 years and 8 children later. Their marriage lasted through some very difficult times, they had arguments about lack of money even though they both worked.
Some of my friends were not as fortunate to have caring parents so I appreciated mine. My dad died in his 60s my mum in her 90s I still miss them.

8 children!

Mum saw dad preach his first time as the appointed minister of her church. Turned to her mother and said "That's the man I'm going to marry!"

That's strange, isn't it?
I've heard of a good few, though, who have got that certainty that here is their future spouse.

Thanks, MissAdventure. By a strange coincidence, I did eventually get to know my birth mother when I was 15, and we were friends until her death in 1986. It was all very complicated though.

I can imagine!
A strange coincidence?
Curiosor, and curiosour.
Not sure that's the right spelling, but....

I met her at an auction scale..... It's a long story. I went in to buy a bike and came out with a mother.

Auction Sale....not scale....

Well, what a tale, Henetha.
I'm glad you got to meet her, though.
It must have helped a little, I'd imagine, though not a useful as a bike!

Well, I got both. The bike was lovely, shiny red with drop handlebars. My mother was lovely too, but it was hard to understand why she had given me away so easily. But we became friends. Thanks for your interest, MissAdventure

I suppose just because she was so young, and in those days, easily swayed by pressure.

Yours is a lovely story, thank you!

In the 60 s/70 s into the 80 s probably, pregnancy out of marriage was shameful and hugely embarrassing both for the mother and her family.
There was little support financial or otherwise, and they were generally ‘encouraged’ to give up their babies for adoption after a stay in a mother and baby home.
The few who kept their babies usually had family support but that was rare.
Henetha glad you found your mum, but what a strange way you did.

henetha

Well, I got both. The bike was lovely, shiny red with drop handlebars. My mother was lovely too, but it was hard to understand why she had given me away so easily. But we became friends. Thanks for your interest, MissAdventure

what an extraordinary story Henetha, worthy of a book.. I'm so glad you found some resolution and became friends with your mother.. it must have been difficult for you..

Wouldn't all these stories make an interesting little book?

Can you even still buy books of that sort?