Welcome to my blog, where I take pleasure in words and pictures, be they my own or those of others. I'm a creative individual, and the crafty side I explore on my 'other blog', Picking Up The Threads, which I hope you'll visit too. I'm sure you understand that I have sole copyright of my original work and any of my contributions, so please ask if you want to use them. A polite request is rarely refused. So, as they used to say on the BBC's 'Listen With Mother' radio programme, many years ago: "Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin."

Sunday 28 August 2016

Golden Years

Look at the sky, life’s begun,
Nights are warm and the days are young.


My grandparents, pictured at their wedding in 1918, except it wasn’t their wedding, it was the day after and this is explained in an earlier post, Wedding Day Delay. They were very young; my grandfather having joined the army at the start of WW1 at just sixteen years of age. He was twenty and my grandma was twenty-one. I guess after what he’d been though, he thought it was time to settle down and enjoy some love and happiness. Whilst Granddad was serving, my Gran Did Her Bit as a munitionette. Now a new phase of their life would begin. This was no shotgun wedding, my Grandfather was far too honourable. A ‘honeymoon baby’ did however seal their happiness when my Mum’s older brother was born.

In walked luck and you looked in time
Never look back, walk tall, act fine.


Mum followed seventeen months later and the family was complete. Throughout the twenties and thirties my granddad worked hard to provide for them all, despite the depression years when money was tight. Sadly their firstborn was to die, aged just fifteen years, in a freak accident, and when my Dad came courting Mum, my grandparents took him to their hearts and treated him like a son.

They appear in many of my previous blogposts, including earlier this month, Twenty Tiny Fingers, with a photo taken towards the end of Granddad’s life. The way I like to remember them is as two loving people with whom I would enjoy spending time at weekends and holidays. They grew quite stout in later years and My Gran was not very mobile but they would still have a week’s holiday on the Lincolnshire coast in the Summer. Here they are making the most of some rare English sun in 1963. Strange to think that they are about the same age there as I am now!

I’ll stick with you baby for a thousand years,
Nothing’s gonna to touch you in these golden years.


They did make it to their Golden Wedding, I’m pleased to say and had a couple of years more together, before Granddad died, shortly before his 73rd birthday. Quite young by today’s standards.

Wish upon, wish upon, day upon day, I believe oh Lord
I believe all the way.


My own parents made it to their Platinum Wedding (70 years) and the trend these days seems to be for longevity, if you can ride the storms that life inevitably hurls at you. It’s so much better to do it with a loving partner by your side, as my grandparents did. Fifty years marks the special anniversary; Golden Years indeed.

The quotes are from one of my favourite David Bowie songs ‘Golden Years', which was used many years later in one of my favourite films, 'A Knight’s Tale', for a terrific dance sequence.

Join others at Sepia Saturday, where all this month we are posting on the theme of Love and Marriage.



7 comments:

  1. What a good looking pair! Your grandad in particular could have starred in a 1950s or 60s Hollywood movie, if they'd had them in those days ! :)

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  2. A lovely tribute to,your grandparents.

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  3. A lovely post, Nell. And I particularly like the photo of your grandparents catching some rays in 1963. Is it me, or do they appear as though they're about to say something. Such gentle expressions.

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  4. Lovely photographs, especially the first two, and you are so good at thinking of such suitable verses to accompany them. Beautiful!

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  5. Lovely photographs, all. One thing I couldn't help noticing was that your grandmother apparently liked 'V' necklines. I noticed because so do I. My reason is because I can't stand anything up close around my neck. I wonder if that might have been her reason? Do you know? Luckily, 'V' necklines look very nice on most folks.

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  6. A nice stroll through their years. It's sad they lost their son, I think I remember a post about that, but good that they were able to take your father to their hearts.

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  7. I'm glad he made it alive through WWI!

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