Silver Wedding Anniversary

18th September 2011

Silver Wedding

Twenty five years is quite a milestone isn’t it? I didn’t mind marking the occasion last night because for us it has been a turbulent but exciting journey.

George and I met first I think at an audition or rehearsal, not sure which, in 1979, at McMaster University for a play written by the university librarian, Walter Reedy. It was called Losers Keepers and was about the Celts…Walter himself was Welsh. I have to confess that I found the play confusing, it was a collection of strange and comic scenes. Fortunately I was cast as the Welsh mother in a mining family. The set was the interior of the small miner’s cottage: the front room…combined kitchen dining/living room. George was cast as my husband, my youngest daughter Fiona was asked to play our daughter….a foretaste of things to come! This turned out to be the most realistic and ‘normal’ scene in the play. I loved the entrance music…We’ll keep a welcome in the hillsides…”, whatever I sounded I felt Welsh as I walked on stage.
George and I didn’t get on particularly well, I thought he mugged too much and he thought I was a prima donna…something no one else has ever accused me of! What I considered practical questions which I asked our director, David Inman, George thought proved my prima-donna status! One had to do with the basic furniture for heaven’s sake…I believe his mind was already made up! Anyway he was engaged to someone else and preoccupied so apart from playing husband and wife on stage we had little interaction off it.
I met him again at an audition for ‘Hamlet’ when I was auditioning for the role of Gertrude. That play came to naught and we never heard why. There were at least three drama groups functioning at the University in those days and our paths crossed numerous times over the years. Both our marriages ended in divorce and we were cast together once again in Charlie’s Aunt at the Players Guild in Hamilton…I playing the ‘real’ Aunt. That was in 1984.

After rehearsals we would wander off to the nearest pub, sometimes with other cast members but often on our own. We had a few drinks and long conversations and then George would see me on to the Dundas bus. On one occasion having been asked to a work colleague’s wedding I asked George to accompany me not particularly wanting to go on my own. I had given up my car to save money so borrowed an old cloncker from a neighbour in the Co-op we shared in a huge old Dundas house . It was an automatic but one had to drive it as a standard which I had got down to a fine art. George was impressed with my success in making the car go at all and offered to lend me his Le Car whilst he was on summer holiday in Europe. I accepted gladly and had to remind myself how to drive a standard correctly which I had not done for many years. It was such a generous offer and enabled Fiona, her friend Katie and I to drive to Southampton (In Ontario) and have a lovely holiday ourselves beside Lake Huron.

George , my great friend Audrey Diemert and I had taken to going up to Toronto together to see plays and movies so we had become friends and enjoyed each other’s company. When he was returning from Europe Audrey and I had gone together to pick him up at the airport. On this occasion Audrey suggested that I should go alone and I protested…why should I? I asked….’Because I think he would like that’ she replied. I was taken aback having noticed no preference on his part for my company. Besides I hated that drive to the airport, it was confusing and very fast and I needed her company. No said my most amenable friend, I had never known her so uncooperative. So I picked George up on my own and he seemed fairly happy to see me.

One night George called me at home where I was snuggled up with Fiona watching TV. ‘Would you like to come to the Dominican Republic with me?’ he asked. ‘Sounds lovely’ I replied ‘But there is no way I can afford it’, ‘Oh I’ll pay’ he said ‘I would enjoy your company’. I asked for time to think about it and conferred with Fiona, Audrey and my friend Liz Inman. Their combined opinion was that I should accept ‘But’ said Liz ‘Don’t hurt George!’ what? I thought…this is my friend telling me not to hurt a man! I was stunned. It was not my habit to do so and I still have trouble understanding the warning! However, Liz had known George for many more years than I had so I overlooked the remark.
We had an eventful holiday in the DR. First of all I lost my reading glasses on the beach and we could not find them in the sand….this meant that George started reading to me in the evenings which I loved. The second point of interest was that I was in 7th heaven being in the tropics again amidst swaying palms and sunny skies. George didn’t like our room and the constant and fairly strong breeze, in fact was disappointed with the place. I hadn’t had a holiday like this for some years and it was like a gift from the Gods…I was as happy as I could possibly be with everything! Last but definitely not least George became very ill with vomiting and diarrhoea…as did about 50% of the visitors at the resort. I was fine! There was a doctor on site fortunately so she visited George and put him on an antibiotic. He had somewhat recovered by or last day and we flew home.

George had been visiting Hvar in Yugoslavia for some years and was preparing to go again in the following summer. I decided to take out a loan from the bank and follow him there during my own much shorter holidays. I flew to Munich and then on to Split by train and from there took a beautiful ferry ride to Hvar. There as we drew nearer I spied a figure sitting near the harbour sitting on the rocks reading a book….George. I met his friends and loved the place and the ambience. We were married before the next summer when we both visited again. Shortly afterwards the war broke out and we have never been back….I think George still misses it.

George proposed to me on a camping trip to the Algonquin Park in Ontario. We had been camping overnight on an island with my little dog ‘Fiki. We awoke to rain and a strong wind but decided to try to make it back to the centre from which we had rented our canoe. It involved at least two portages and a few hours on the lake…it was rough and choppy and, between paddling hard, I held up one of G’s shirts to act as a sail and speed us along! Eventually, tired and wet, we decided to tie up the canoe and rest on a smooth, pancake shaped rock. We each had a swig of reviving brandy and George proposed. I had a splitting headache, was hungry and irritable and I couldn’t at first believe my ears. Then I thought that if he could ask me to marry him seeing me at my worst; no make up, possibly scowling, hair like a birds nest….then I should accept quickly before he changed his mind. So I did!

We were married on the 18th September 1986 in the Hamilton registry Office on James South. Only my daughters and a few good friends were present: Sheona, Tessa (our photographer) and Fiona, Audrey Diemert, Bob Johnston and Gerard Valee. We held our tiny reception lunch in the Winking Judge, a pub nearby. Not an auspicious start perhaps but here we are, still together 25 years later!