[15] Christine Reason: real life story 1951 to 1956
Continuing my real life story 1951, a friend of mine at the Congregational Church at Terling, where I also worshipped, used to have me to tea after work occasionally.
She worked as a cook for Lord and Lady Rayleigh, and she knew Roy as well, and thought that we would be excellently matched, so she began to have him to tea at the same time!
Roy served on the Scout Committee, and I did as well, as I was the Wolf Cub Akela.
During this time from 1951 to May 1956, I was working as a shorthand typist in the Supplies Dept. of Essex County Council.
About once every three months, Ted drove their black Ford car, (and latterly a green Bedford van), with all of us, except George, in it, to go to Kent to visit Roy and Ted’s sister, Jess, her husband Leslie, and daughters Jennifer and Pauline, who lived near Bromley.
Daisy always sat in the front with Ted, while Aunt May, Roy and I squashed into the back, with Roy in the middle, which was a real treat for me!
Of course we were on our own when Roy saw me home after the meal at their cottage, but in the two years we were courting, we only went out to a cinema three times, as the only bus from Terling into Chelmsford left at 8.00 a.m. and returned at 5.00 p.m., and of course the car and later the van, was joint-owned with Ted, and anyway there was no spare cash for petrol.
We were married at Terling Parish Church on 15th October 1955, and went on honeymoon to Swanage in Dorset, for a fortnight, borrowing a Morris Minor car from friends of the Reasons in Chelmsford.
Instead of going straight back to Terling, we did a detour by way of Rye, in Sussex to visit my Grandfather and Aunt Nellie who, a few weeks before, had become a widow.
She had only been married, for the first time at age 62 years, for about eighteen months to Fred Whitford, who had been choirmaster at the Baptist Church at Woodford.
He and his first wife, who had died a year or two previously, were friends of our family.
It was a very sad thing to happen, as he was a charming man.
He was quite distinctive looking, as he had crinkly grey hair and always wore a spotted bow tie.
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