Green Smarties

The reception was held at the Carlton Hotel, and the Mace Bearer to the Mayor of Bournemouth had kindly offered his services as Toastmaster in view of my father’s long involvement with local government. This was very good of the Mace Bearer as he had obviously forgiven Peter for not allowing him to accompany the Mayor in the helicopter when he was taken to HMS SIRIUS during one of the days the ship was in the bay. ‘The rules are strict.’ Peter had argued ‘I have only been given permission to take one civilian passenger so I am sorry, the Mace Bearer cannot come with the Mayor.’ This was the only time I ever knew Peter stick to any kind of rule.

However, the Mayor had his revenge as once he had landed on the deck he turned to hand his official hat to Peter (as the Mace Bearer was not there). Deeply affronted Peter had passed it on to his Observer, who passed it on to the Chief Petty Officer, who passed it down the line to some hapless sailor hanging around at the end. It could have been a hand grenade the way it was being passed so quickly in a ceremony resembling a game of pass the parcel.

At the wedding reception a string quartet played gently in one corner of the room at the Carlton and our guests were enjoying themselves. However Peter and I were still waiting in the line up for my brother and a few of Peter’s relatives to arrive. Half an hour later, my brother turned up to explain that Peter’s cousin had suffered an attack of food poisoning at the back of the church, and he had felt duty bound to wait for her. At least that was what he said. She was very pretty though.

The wedding buffet passed uneventfully with my uncle Jack delivering the speech which had been written by my father. Although my father was brilliant at writing speeches, he hated being in the limelight so had passed the buck.

Peter’s brother David, the best man, read out some very embarrassing telegrams from Navy friends. Two (which I was assured later were extracts from some technical flying manual) read as follows:-

And

These extracts caused much mirth amongst the Navy present and much confusion for my bemused mother who could not understand it at all. She always seemed to live cocooned in a bubble of innocence.

After the reception we went through the motion of changing out of formal wedding outfits into ‘going away’ clothes and then left in Peter’s Triumph 2000 which trailed tin cans and various other paraphernalia which it was probably best I knew nothing of. However, we were not leaving for our honeymoon at that stage, but were only going back home to await the start of the unofficial disco arranged for later that evening. Peter and I ended up enjoying ourselves so much at this that we lost all sense of time.

‘Struth it’s 11.30 p.m. already.’ he said glancing at his watch ‘Better head off for Cerne Abbas before the hotel gives up on us altogether’.

Peter drove like a pilot. In other words as if there was nothing else on the road, and as the crow flies; and we left a trail of traumatised drivers in our wake – and later various farm animals scattered behind as we sped to Cerne Abbas in a startling twenty-five minutes through the winding Dorset lanes.

We entered the darkened building and were greeted by a log fire crackling warmly in the grate, and a sleepy and good natured Landlord. ‘Don’t you worry yourselves.’ he said with a broad Dorset brogue ‘I’ve been dozing by the fire waiting for you – would’ve waited all night if necessary for a wedding couple.’