‘That’s nice,’ said her aunt. ‘I thought you might have been going to the pictures. It doesn’t matter so much to me, but I know that your dad doesn’t approve of the cinema on a Sunday. It’s the way we were brought up, you know. And, of course, your dad’s been much keener on Sunday observance since he started going to church regularly. But he won’t object to you going to see the Lights.’
‘We wouldn’t want to do anything to upset him,’ said Kathy. ‘But in some ways he’s much easier to get on with now, isn’t he?’
‘That’s true.’ Winifred nodded. ‘Have a good time, then. We’ll perhaps see you the next time you’re home on leave, then, Tim?’
‘Sure thing!’ he replied with a broad smile. ‘It’s been good meeting you again.’
‘And you, Tim,’ added Jeff. ‘Take care of yourself now.’
‘What a grand couple they are,’ said Tim, as they made their way once again to the promenade.
‘Yes, Jeff’s a great guy,’ replied Kathy. ‘He’s made Aunty Win so happy. I don’t think my dad imagined she would ever get married. And I’m sure my dad won’t, not now. He’s not taken much interest in women since that brief episode with Sally. He’s happier in himself, though. He used to be such a grumpy old so-and-so at times.’
Tim laughed. ‘Well, I seem to have got off on the right foot anyhow. I hope I can keep it that way.’
They boarded a tram near to North Pier. It took them along the prom to Bispham where the tableaux and the garlands of overhead lights came to an end. It was completely dark by now and the myriad multicoloured lights shone out brilliantly against the midnight-blue sky.
When they alighted from the tram they crossed the road to get a better view of the tableaux across the wide promenade. The scenes were a spectacular display of man’s ingenuity and creativity, and it was often remarked that they got better each year. They had been shining in Blackpool since the early years of the century, apart from the duration of the two world wars.
Kathy recognised many familiar scenes – a circus scene with jugglers, clowns and acrobats; jungle animals and creatures from under the sea; favourite characters from nursery rhymes and fairy tales – and overhead, strung across the promenade and decorating the lamp standards, there were Chinese lanterns, shooting stars and arching rainbows. It was a wonderland of colour and fantasy that brought out the child in everyone who was drawn into its spell. No more so than Kathy. She was filled with awe and delight, not only at the scene around her but at her closeness to Tim as they strolled along with his arm around her.
When they had walked a mile or so back towards the town centre they crossed the road and the tram track and made their way to the lower promenade. It was dark and quiet there away from the brilliant lights and the noise of the crowds and the clanging trams. There were a few other couples, who, like themselves, were seeking solitude. They had not kissed properly yet, apart from a peck on her cheek that Tim had given her as they walked along.
But it was all the better for the waiting. He drew her into a secluded corner in the shadow of the sea wall, and there they exchanged their first real kiss. It was tender and loving, filled with memories for both of them of their childhood friendship. There were still vestiges of the old Tim in his cheeky grin and his cheerful chatter that led him effortlessly from one thing to another. But he was grown-up now, and so was Kathy. Their next kiss was more passionate, holding promise of an awakening love of which they were both aware.
They drew apart after a few moments. He had not sought to do any more than kiss her. Nor did he tell her, yet, that he loved her. It was too soon; but the affection had been there long ago when they were children, and they both knew now that it would grow stronger. All he said, in a whisper, was, ‘I’m so glad that I’ve met you again, Kathy.’
‘So am I, Tim,’ she whispered back.
‘Come along; I’d best take you home,’ he said. ‘I must keep on the right side of your dad. Anyway, I’d better spend a bit of time with my parents.’
It was not yet ten o’clock but Kathy understood what he was saying. ‘I’ll see you again tomorrow, though, won’t I?’ he asked. ‘D’you think your dad would let you off to come to tea at our house? I told my mum and dad how we met, and they’d love to see you again. Then we can go out tomorrow night.’
‘I am allowed a little time to myself!’ said Kathy. ‘So I’m sure it will be OK with my dad and Aunty Win. I shall look forward to meeting your parents. I remember your mum, but not your dad.’
He kissed her again as they stood at the gate, then smiled and winked in the irrepressible way that she remembered, before walking off, with his soldier’s gait, along the street.
He called for her the following day at five o’clock. The Fielding family lived only ten minutes’ walk away, in a semi near to the school that Kathy and Tim had attended.
She was made most welcome and felt at home straight away. Tim’s mother was quite young – not yet fifty – and pretty, with a rounded face and a plumpish figure.
‘Oh, I remember you very well, dear,’ she said. ‘You’ve hardly changed at all.’
‘I must be rather bigger,’ smiled Kathy. ‘It’s lovely to see you again, Mrs Fielding.’
Tim had a younger sister, Linda, who was fifteen, and a thirteen-year-old brother, Bobby. She remembered seeing him in his pram, but she didn’t say so. Kathy could hardly remember Mr Fielding at all. She had known that he worked as an electrician for the local council, a job he was still doing. Tim had followed the same trade but for a different firm.
When he came home from work at six o’clock he, also, greeted her in a most friendly manner. Then they all sat down to a meal of steak-and-kidney pie and chips, followed by apple crumble with fresh cream. They finished off with a ‘nice cup of tea’, without which no northern meal was complete. Mrs Fielding had been hard at work in the kitchen for the latter part of the afternoon preparing the meal, as she did each day. She was, as she said herself, ‘a full-time housewife and mum, and proud of it.’ Like the majority of her generation she had not gone out to work after her marriage, nor had she ever wanted to.
‘Times are changing, though, I realise that,’ she remarked. ‘I daresay you will want to go on working, Kathy, after you get married … Not just yet, though,’ she added in the rather awkward silence that followed. Kathy felt herself blushing a little; was Tim’s mother already thinking of her as a future daughter-in-law? But it seemed that she was just speaking in general terms. ‘I mean, that’s what today’s young women seem to be doing, to help with the mortgage and everything, till the children come along.’
‘Let ’em have a bit of freedom first, eh, Elsie?’ joked her husband. ‘Although there’s nowt wrong with getting wed young if you’re sure it’s what you want.’ Kathy wondered if he, too, was looking at her with an eye to the future.
She and Tim went out soon after the meal to catch the start of the film, I’m All Right, Jack, which was showing at a local cinema not far from both their homes. It was a rerun from a couple of years back that neither of them had seen the first time round. They laughed out loud with the rest of the audience at the antics of Ian Carmichael, as a graduate, trying to find his niche in industry, and the superb performance of Peter Sellers as the shop steward.
Tim bought her an ice cream in a little tub at the interval, and they held hands all the time, like a real ‘courting couple’, which she knew they almost were already.
They walked back to Kathy’s home through the dark streets, both a little sad because it would soon be time to say goodbye, at least for the moment. They kissed several times as they stood by the gate, marvelling again at how wonderful it was that they had found one another again.
‘You will write to me, won’t you?’ asked Tim.
‘Of course I will, all the time,’ she assured him. ‘But you’ll write as well, won’t you?’ She knew that a lot of young men were not great at correspondence.
‘I’m not the world’s best letter writer,’
he confessed. ‘My mother complains about it, but for you … yes, I promise I’ll write every week, at least. But I’ll see you again very soon, I hope, in a few weeks’ time if I can wangle it.’
After another tender kiss and a fond backward glance he was gone. But Kathy could not feel too sad at their parting. She knew that what they had found was ‘for keeps’.
Their courtship followed the pattern of many of their peer group, where the young man was completing his national service. Tim still had a year and a half to do. He managed to get leave, though, every couple of months and they spent most of the time together. Their love for one another grew stronger and deeper. They had both uttered the ‘three little words’ that meant such a lot quite soon in their courtship, both of them knowing that ‘I love you’ meant for now and for ever.
It was not until the Christmas of 1962, though, that Tim asked Kathy to marry him, knowing that she would say yes. Holmleigh was open for four days over the Christmas period, so the two of them had not been able to spend as much time together as they could have wished; Kathy wanted to make sure that she pulled her weight at what was a very busy time. Tim had given her a ring that he had chosen himself, a sapphire surrounded by tiny diamonds which she loved.
They agreed, though, that it would be better to approach Kathy’s father – to ask for his consent, in the old-fashioned way – when he was not quite so fraught with his hotel duties.
Kathy and Tim said goodbye at North Station the day after Boxing Day, hoping that it would not be very long before he was home again. Tim intended to wangle a forty-eight-hour pass at the end of January, then he would ask her father if he would agree to them being officially engaged.
Chapter Nineteen
Kathy and Tim had decided that she should broach the subject in advance. She guessed, although he didn’t admit it, that Tim was a tiny bit nervous about approaching her father. She brought up the subject one morning over the breakfast table. Albert would not be running true to form, however, if he did not have something contrary to say.
‘You want to get engaged?’ He stared in astonishment at his daughter. ‘But you’ve only known the lad five minutes!’ Kathy could see, though, that there was a twinkle in her father’s eye, and she knew he was not as surprised as he was pretending to be.
‘Now, that’s not true at all, Dad,’ she replied, ‘as you know very well. I was at school with Tim; we’ve known each other since we were five years old. I should think that’s quite long enough for us to know what we want.’
‘Aye, but you were only kids then, weren’t you? What I mean is … you’ve not been together all that much recently, with him being in the army. You’ve not had a chance to get to know him properly.’
Kathy smiled. ‘Tim and I are very sure about what we want, Dad. Anyway, he’s coming home on leave this weekend, and he’s coming to see you. I know it might seem a bit old-fashioned, but he wants to do things properly, to ask your permission to marry me. I’m just paving the way, like, because I think he’s a bit nervous.’
‘It’s not old-fashioned at all,’ retorted Albert. ‘You’re only nineteen … well, twenty in June, and he’s not much older, is he? Anyroad, I’m pleased he’s going to do things correctly. You’ll not be wanting to get wed just yet, though, will you?’
‘I’m not sure.’ said Kathy evasively. She and Tim were planning to have a short engagement with a wedding later that summer. It was now January, 1963, and Tim was due to be demobbed in March. His job with Fothergill’s electricians, an old-established local firm, was there for him to return to. They could see no point in waiting any longer as they were both sure of their feelings for one another, and had been so ever since they had met at the Winter Gardens, some sixteen months previously. They had both seen it as fate that they had met again, and felt sure that if they hadn’t met at that time, then they would have done so at a later date.
‘Well, he’s a nice enough lad, I must say,’ said Albert. ‘Aye, you could have done far worse, Kathy. But I want you to be very sure, both of you. It’s too late once you’ve tied the knot. We don’t want any divorces in the family, like that Sadie Morris. She was a flibbertigibbet if ever there was one! But she had us all fooled. I’d never have believed it.’
‘But that’s ages ago, Dad,’ said Kathy. He did tend to harp on so about things that had happened in the past. ‘Don’t start on about divorce when we’re not even married yet. Anyway, that’s not going to happen, I can assure you, with Tim and me.’
‘You can never be too sure,’ said her father, shaking his head in a mournful way.
‘Dad, for goodness’ sake!’ Kathy was starting to get cross with her father, but she could see the funny side of it as well. ‘Don’t be so bloomin’ pessimistic!’
Albert smiled. ‘No, you’re right. I’m being silly, aren’t I? But you know how I feel, Kathy love, don’t you? I want the very best of everything for you. I want it all to be just right.’
‘I know, Dad,’ she replied. Indeed, she did know. He had been so caring and loving – overprotective at times – ever since she had had her accident and he had feared that he might lose her. She couldn’t say, though, that he had ever been domineering or dictatorial with her; besides, her aunt and Jeff had always been there to stick up for her if he had ever been too intractable.
They were taking their ease at the breakfast table. There would be no more visitors until the week before Easter, unless some of their regulars asked to come and stay for a few days. They were always willing to oblige their clients, and that was why the hotel had a deservedly good reputation.
Kathy’s aunt spoke up now. ‘Well, I think this is very good news, and I’m not surprised at all. You’ve only to look at our Kathy and Tim to see that they’re made for one another.’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘And I’ve a feeling that Kathy thought so when she was only seven years old!’
Kathy laughed. ‘Yes, I always had a soft spot for Tim.’
‘I’m sure you’ll be very happy together,’ said Winifred. ‘So let’s not have any negative thoughts about it, eh, Albert? You should be looking forward to your only daughter getting married, and then some grandchildren coming along!’
‘Well … yes, so I am,’ Albert admitted, looking affectionately at his daughter.
‘I must love you and leave you now,’ said Kathy, putting her pots together and getting up from the table. ‘I’m sorry – I’ve left it a bit late to help with the washing-up, Aunty Win.’
‘Don’t worry, dear; I’ll have it done in a jiffy,’ said Winifred. ‘Then I’m going to have a day of leisure before we make a start on the attic bedrooms tomorrow.’
Kathy had a part-time job during the winter months when the hotel was quiet. She did the accounts for a nearby newsagent’s shop all the year round, but during the winter she served at the counter as well, to give the newsagent’s wife a well-earned rest. Albert and Winifred still caught up with decorating and general maintenance of the hotel during the off-season, with help from Jeff in between his commissions for book illustrations and greetings cards.
The four of them were a contented little family group. Winifred and Jeff had found happiness that they had not anticipated so late in life. Kathy was looking forward to marrying the man whom folk were referring to as her childhood sweetheart. She hoped that they would be married sooner rather than later, if her father could be persuaded to give permission for her to marry before she officially came of age at twenty-one. And as for Albert, he seemed to have come to terms with his situation. He was no longer bitter about the death of his young wife, the event that had altered his view of life for so long. Nor did he resent his daughter’s friendship with Sally and Phil and their young family. He could see that the young woman with whom he had – almost – fallen in love was happy with a man of her own age, one who was far more suited to her than he, Albert, would have been. The only women in his life now were his beloved daughter and his sister. And, along with his devotion to them, his commitment to his church and his rediscov
ered faith were a great solace to him.
Albert did not take much persuading to allow his daughter to marry before she was twenty-one. The wedding took place at the church that Albert now thought of as ‘his’ church, on a glorious sunny Saturday in mid August. What did it matter that it was the height of the holiday season? This was Kathy’s day and she must have priority for once over the needs of the visitors. It was Tim’s day as well, of course, although the bridegroom usually found himself overshadowed, and Tim was no exception to the rule.
Kathy had insisted, however, that she did not want a huge fuss, just a simple buffet meal after the wedding ceremony, with family members and friends. There were very few relatives on Kathy’s side of the family, only her father and her aunt and Jeff; her grandparents had died a couple of years previously. But Tim’s family made up for the sparsity; there were grandparents still living, as well as aunts, uncles and cousins.
Her wedding dress was a simple style: white silken satin with a boat-shaped neckline and an ankle-length bell-shaped skirt. Her short silk-tulle veil flowed from a neat pillbox hat decorated with seed pearls. Her bridesmaids were her friend, Marcia, Tim’s sixteen-year-old sister, Linda, and Sally and Phil’s ten-year-old daughter, Lucy. Their dresses, too, were simple, in keeping with the fashions of the day – sky-blue silken rayon in the now very popular shift style. Their matching pillbox hats complemented that of the bride, and they all, bride and bridesmaids, carried small posies of white and cream flowers: roses, sweet peas, lily of the valley and stephanotis.
The wedding breakfast – although it was at midday – was at Holmleigh, prepared in advance by Albert and Winifred and then laid out ready for their return from church by a team of hired helpers who would, later, see to the clearing away and washing-up. Kathy’s father and her aunt wanted to be entirely free that day, and so guests who would normally have arrived on the Saturday had been asked to delay their arrival until the Sunday.
Time Goes By Page 20