Mary Elizabeth was born in London, England in June 1942; father born in the Midlands was a soldier in the Royal Horse Artillery (from age seventeen). Mother was very much a Londoner born in St. Johns Wood.
     St. Martin- in-the-Fields school, Trafalgar Square is where I fell in love with Mary when I was fourteen. I used to stare at her in church every morning, standing opposite me in the choir with her black hair and dark eyes and promised myself that I would marry her.
     I had a great idea and went about putting my dastardly plan into action, first I sneaked into the headmaster’s room when school finished and obtained Mary's address.
     It was no accident that my first job after leaving school at fifteen was in the same suburb where Mary lived.
     I used to cycle around the streets where she lived hoping to catch a glimpse of that little face that I adored and to complement her on how she looked.    
A really big impression on Mary was needed. The fashion accessory of the fifties was to ride around on a motor scooter. I was very aware of the current fashions and fads, so I bought a Lambretta motor scooter as soon as I turned sixteen. Mary was very fond of Regents Park Rose Gardens where I had spotted her a few times. On a lovely August summers day I saw her there with her friend Pamela and so as not to be too obvious I offered them both a joy ride. Pamela first, Mary second. Poor Pamela had to walk home.  Mary was hooked!
I asked Mary what is her favourite colour and the next time I called on her I had the Lambretta resprayed blue, her favourite colour.
     On her sixteenth birthday I proposed and to my astonishment she accepted. Her parents did not object to this cheeky little foreigner and gave us their blessing.
     We married in August 1959 in a Catholic church in St Johns Wood, she was barely seventeen and the rest is as they say, is history.
     Life was very hard for us newly weds in the first few years because London had an acute housing shortage. It took four years and hundreds of hours of overtime to save enough money for a deposit on our first house and having three children by the age of twenty three made the economics even harder.
    After forty eight years of marriage, without doubt it is still the best idea I ever had in my life.