Right Down the Line

Mags and I never really did anniversaries but I know she would have been chuffed today because half a century ago, precisely, we tied the knot. We were together for 50 years but actually married for 48.

Following her diagnosis in 2019 and the subsequent ‘cancer-free’ scan result in early 2020 I believe deep down she set her sights on a golden anniversary for us. It was doable, possibly. I know we talked about it, rather like the way we once talked about death in the abstract, fleetingly and not too much in earnest. It wasn’t to be. She left one year and nine months ahead of a celebration. But I’m still here and Mags is so much a part of me that a golden milestone warrants marking, if only with a Substack post.

I’ve written a great deal about our later life together. On various blogs and social media I’ve offered glimpses of grandparenthood. Then came the posts focused on Mags’ final years and the extraordinary, disorientating blizzard of grief that swept in and settled around us, trapping remaining loved ones in a relentless invisible drift.

What follows is a peek at how things were for us from the mid to late 70s. We were free, fun and sometimes foolish. You know, the way people can be when they feel safe with each other and can’t imagine ever being apart.

No one knows how married life is going to turn out. You kind of make it up as you go along. At least we did. In the end we spent the bulk of our lives as a couple, as a team, as a partnership we built together as we learnt the art of compromise. At the business end of the aisle two people made their promises and stuck to them. I was 19, Mags was 26. Ridiculous I know but back then there was no shortage of serious doubters. It’ll never last. He’s too young. There’s too much of an age gap. But we never bought into that kind of negativity. We had clicked and knew very early on that we were meant for each other.

In the early days - in fact the first five years - we only had ourselves to please. It was pretty hedonistic and fancy free until late 1977 when, without much warning, I went to a dark place. A place I emerged from after four or five months thanks to Mags. Her love and patience got me right side up again. You never forget stuff like that.

Back then there was always music. Visitors came and went, often bringing vinyl to share and sometimes forgetting to take it with them. Various people would arrive with acoustic guitars, songs got half played, conversations went on well into the night, until it was almost impossible to see who was talking through the lingering clouds of smoke. Impromptu boozy evenings and days when work got relegated in favour of a jaunt to somewhere, anywhere. In 1975 we gave up our jobs and journeyed to Scotland on an ill fated adventure with my stepbrother. Our destination was Arran but the foul weather resulted in the ferry being delayed. We killed time in the pub and our world was pitching and rolling long before boarding for Brodick. Then a long hike in horizontal rain, a soggy night under soggy canvas in a fir plantation. Next morning we sauntered to Lamlash. I remember the steam rising off our bodies as we shopped for food. An 11 mile walk to Kilmory where we found a path to the sea through woodland, and marvelled at herons nesting in the trees. Bluebell carpets extended away from us on both sides. A couple of nights on the beach and, as beautiful as it was, the cold and the damp, not to mention the blisters, were just too much. We called the whole thing off.

Much of our first five years played out in a series of random scenes like the Scottish one - without the blisters and sorry endings - until our baby girl was born in 1979. Nothing quite like the arrival of a small person in the mix to alter things irrevocably. In 1981 we made another long journey. This time we were organised in as much as we had a destination; Cornwall. My mum had bought a small two up, two down cottage there as an investment. We would be the new occupants of this 19th century home for the next fourteen and a half years. Another story. To be continued another time - maybe.

So happy anniversary Mags! It was you, right down the line. Then, now and always. 💞