As many of you will already know, Dorothy died on 12^th January in the Royal Preston Hospital. Kathy, David and I received a great many letters, cards, ’phone calls and bunches of flowers – which all helped us through a tough time, and the home-cooked food has been especially welcome!

Many of your memories of Dorothy mentioned her cheerfulness and her smile. The Thanksgiving Service held at Church (and which a number of you ‘Zoomed’ into) included a selection of photographs to which I added a commentary. One of the events featured was our wedding and it has been suggested to me that the hilarious sequence of events which unfolded on that day deserved a wider audience, so here it is:-

"Saturday 11^th August, 1962 was an eventful day, because I clearly remember my new wife promising to obey me, but I guess it quickly became a moot point thereafter.

That morning a friend and I had gone on an errand. We were delayed and were late back: so late in fact that my mother feared that I had changed my mind about getting married and had run off!

In spite of it being August the weather was more like November. It was cold, it was windy and it was wet. Len & Mavis Fletcher – both here today – were married on the corresponding Saturday the following year and met with similar conditions. Our joint advice is: be very cautious if you ever have ideas of planning anything of importance for the second Saturday in August!

Most of the photographs had to be taken indoors, so bad were the conditions.

My cousin Margaret’s five year old twins, Ann and Patricia, had been so excited at the prospect of being bridesmaids that they’d cut each other’s hair in preparation for the big event and they had to be hauled off to the hairdresser’s to see if she could improve matters at all.

Following the reception and meal Dorothy and I had been taken to Croston to see my Great Aunt Alice, who hadn’t felt up to attending the wedding. When we arrived back in Preston, Dorothy found she’d left her handbag at Croston and there was absolute panic!! Tickets for the train, tickets for the ferry from Liverpool to Dublin and the address of where we were going to be staying were all in there.

Our Dads drove off to Croston to retrieve the handbag, with the strict instruction that if they didn’t think they could make it back to Preston in time they were to stand on Croston station and pass the handbag over when the train stopped there.

Well, we made it to Liverpool and to the ferry OK, but ‘The Fates’ hadn’t finished with us just yet. We found that the lock on the cabin door wouldn’t work properly. Never mind, we thought, we would pile the cases against the door. Later a passing drunk fell heavily against the door and landed in a crumpled heap at our feet!

Life was further enlivened by my new wife announcing, with all the nautical confidence of someone with Cooks on one side of her family and Nelsons on the other, that the ship had run aground. Sure enough, the note of the engines was surging and falling, surging and falling. We must be on a sandbank and struggling to get off. Actually we were calling at Holyhead before going on to Dublin and the ship was simply manoeuvring into the dock".

I have to tell you that this set the pattern for almost fifty eight and a half years of fun and laughter; certainly our life together was never dull.

Many thanks to all who made donations in memory of Dorothy. A total of £680 has gone to the ‘Hearts of Gold’ charity at the Cardiac Centre, Blackpool Victoria Hospital.