Marriage Proposal.
When hubby and I first met I was 15 and he was 17. It wasn’t love at first sight because to me life was just beginning with just coming through a 6 year war that had ended completely by August 8th 1945 and meeting hubby in the September of that year.
He was getting prepared for his call up papers to do his two year National Service and I was ready to take on the world, especially trying to cajole my father into parting with some of his clothing coupons because I wanted to buy some decent clothes to show that I was a young lady. I was working in the hosiery trade then and getting 15 shillings a week wage although I had to pay my mother 7 shillings a week for my board.
My future hubby was working at Cottons the engineering factory and when I met him he had a mop of red hair. When he first started at Cottons aged 14 he learnt a life lesson NOT to have his head anywhere near a mechanical drill because he had all his hair pulled out with one.
He was a baldie before they were even thought of nowadays but as shown in the photo it grew back by the time I met him.
After going out with him for some time which was strictly kept to minimum regarding anything sexual because to be honest I was as green as grass with anything like that. My mother was NOT the sort of person one could go to to talk about that sort of thing and I can well remember when I had my first monthly and thinking I was bleeding to death she told me in no uncertain terms that it is something that I would have to put up with until I went into the change. I then wondered if I was going to change ruddy sex but it transpired that she meant a certain age in a womans life when she stopped ovulating. Gawd knows who told my mother about sex and babies.
It was about this time when my sister was getting married because she was pregnant. Evidently no one had told her either about life and what could happen. It was through seeing my sister starting off her life like that I started to get curious about life and wanted to know how babies were made.
It made me very wary of the opposite sex although I could have a laugh with them but as I got older different things were being talked about between me and any girlfriends and things started to fall into place.
Yes I WAS ignorant regarding that sort of thing but from what I see of todays society to have babies by different men seems to be the norm and at the rate we are going on in a few years time sister will be mating with brother because they had most probably been sired by the same bloke. Horrible thought BUT true I am afraid.
Anyway to get back to my main story.
In the town I had been evacuated to they had a yearly fair come every November which brought the Cock Horses and many side shows plus the Big Wheel. I was 16 years old and my future hubby had had his calling up papers and was home on a weekend leave from the RAF. We went to the fair even though it was bitterly cold plus a miserable drizzle had started.
I had NEVER been on the Big Wheel before because the Fair was banned during the war and this was the first time it had returned to the town after the war years.
I cant say that I was over thrilled with going on it because a wind had got up and with the rain it was not going to be very exciting.
Boy oh Boy! Exciting wasn’t the ruddy word.
I had gone through being bombed out twice plus being machine gunned twice during the war but the experience of being on the Big Wheel and having it break down while hubby and I were stuck well up in the air with the wind buffeting the seat about and me feeling sick, giddy and faint apart from freezing to death and being soaked, being bombed out was a easy compared to this nightmare.
To top it all we were stuck up there huddled together waiting for at least 20 minutes for the firefighters to come and rescue us if the mechanism of the wheel would not work. To take my mind off it my hubby said to me “Maisie if we get out of this ok will you marry me when my National Service is finished?” I was rather taken aback with that question and I asked him if he could get down on one knee to say that again and he.said " Not until we are on on Terra Firma if it’s ok with you".
It was a good job we could giggle about it because it helped to stop me from passing out and being sick. I think the shock did it.
Boy was I glad to get off after the mechanism did start up again and we were down with the firemens help.
I have NEVER been on anything like that since. Once was enough and I had had enough shocks to my system to last me a lifetime.
Have you got a tale to tell of your courtship and possible proposal although I know its a done thing now for partners to live together and nothing ill is thought of them like it was nearly 70 years ago.
Photo below showing how high we were off the ground because we sat right at the very top.
I say sat but we were more like clinging on for life due to being buffetted about in gale force wind. There was no health and safety then.
