by Jim Wight
The village dances were a prominent feature of country life. They have largely disappeared today but, fifty or more years ago, there was a dance every Saturday night in one of the local village halls with throngs of people, young and old, attending them. A few drinks in a nearby pub, followed by an energetic fling on the dance floor and a good feed from the vast tables groaning with good Yorkshire fare, made for a great night out.
These events, at which he had a chance to observe the huge appetites of the Yorkshire country folk, were a revelation to Alf. The food, usually prepared by local housewives, was of the highest calibre, even during the austerity of the war years. Pork pies, brawn, piles of sandwiches, apple pies, trifles, cakes and pastries were all consumed with effortless ease. He was a willing participant in the duty of demolishing the delicious mountains of food – and, in Joan, he had an able assistant. Over his many years working among the farming community, Alf never ceased to be astonished by the farmers’ ability to put away staggering quantities of food. He was always a good eater himself, but these people were in a league of their own; they worked hard and they had appetites to match.
I remember, many years ago, attending the silver wedding celebrations of one of our farming clients in a small village hall. The place was teeming with laughing faces, there were vast amounts of food, and very soon a buzz of satisfaction pervaded the atmosphere, dominated by the noise of the scraping of plates and happy chatter. People filed up to the serving tables for second and third helpings, and I was taking my turn when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was an old client of my father called Herbert Megginson who was a regular at the village dances in the days when he used to visit them. He especially used to enjoy dancing with my mother – on one evening, when heavily under the influence of drink, whispering unsteadily into her ear, ‘Ooh! You ’ave such a supple form!’
‘Supple form’, as he was always known from that day onwards, was enjoying himself on this occasion, surrounded as he was by food, drink and women. ‘Hey, vitin’ry!’ he said, with a knowing smile.
‘Hello, Mr Megginson,’ I replied. ‘This is a good “do”. Plenty to eat!’
‘Aye, ye’re right there!’ He plucked at my sleeve. He was obviously impressed by the speed with which the food was being shovelled out of sight. He nodded in the direction of a group of busy, sweating faces. ‘’Ave yer got yer instruments with yer in case someone gets blown?’
It was at these village functions, which formed such an enjoyable part of their courtship, that Alf and Joan met many people who would become lasting friends, but there was a serious side to Alf’s courtship, too. He was a great letter writer and pursued Joan with the written as well as the spoken word. Some early letters in the summer of 1941 reveal his fluency as a writer, together with more than a dash of the romantic to his nature:
Joan my dear,
Why on earth should I be writing this when, if the Gods are kind, I’ll be seeing you tonight? I believe it is because something, a very trivial something, has been fermenting in this funny, analytical mind of mine and now demands an outlet. It is just that a succession of little thoughts have resolved themselves into a brooding sense of injustice that so many fellows seem to be writing love letters to young Danbury while Wight, with all his music within him, as it were, never puts pen to paper.
Anyway, Joan, now that I am sitting down to the job, I find myself rather up against it because I realise now that I have never written a love letter before. But how difficult it is when it should be so easy. Somehow, the feeling I have for you is not one that bubbles up and froths over in a mass of endearing terms and neatly turned compliments. It is such a very quiet thing like a wide, deep running river and so completely sincere that I, who have always shunned sincerity with its way of laying one open to all the hurts and disappointments that are going, am rather scared. It is only when I sit down to write that I realise the hopeless inadequacy of words to come near to expressing my thoughts; or maybe I am just tired.
Yes, that’s it. How can I make a go of this very important letter when my head is nodding and my arms are aching? But I am going to stagger out with this unfinished fragment so that tomorrow you’ll know that I did make an effort anyway. I’ll be thinking of you till Tuesday – all the time. Goodnight, Joan.
Just yours,
Alf.
His sincerity and quiet determination were to pay dividends. In July 1941, he proposed to Joan and she accepted. Overjoyed, he felt that this was the happiest moment of his entire life as he looked forward in anticipation to spending the rest of his life with the girl he knew was the right one for him. There was, however, a blot on the landscape; it was a large one and it was two hundred miles away in Glasgow.
Alf’s mother, a most strong-minded and formidable lady, was not pleased that her son was considering getting married before he had achieved any lasting security. Shortly after he had mentioned the subject to her, she made her feelings known during a tense and bitter telephone conversation. She considered that no one was good enough for her only son, stating, very emphatically, that Joan was taking her place in his affections. His father, too, did not approve, but his objections were of a more practical nature. Pop, the eternal pessimist, worried that his son would be unable to support a young wife at such an impecunious stage of his life and he expressed his feelings strongly, though not quite so forcefully as his wife.
Alf’s feelings are best illustrated by reproducing excerpts from letters written to his parents during this difficult time. The first was dated 21 July.
Dear Mother and Dad,
I’d like to tell you how I am feeling just in case you think I am airily dismissing your side of everything. No son ever had more wonderful parents than I have and I have lain awake at nights marvelling at the things you have done for me and worrying about how I could ever repay you. I often thought that there was nothing that I could do for you that would ever make up for your wonderful kindness and self sacrifice ….
You asked for some particulars, Mother, about Joan and said you would be a severe critic. You frighten me a bit there because if you are out to criticise you’ll find plenty of faults because she’s just an ordinary girl and no paragon of all the virtues…. But just one thing, Mother; never talk again about anyone ‘taking your place’. Nobody will ever do that. You have a compartment all to yourself in my mind.
Alf, although deeply hurt and disappointed by his parents’ reaction, would not be put off marrying the girl he loved. In August, he took his somewhat apprehensive fiancée to Glasgow to introduce her to his parents. His mother, although civil to Joan, reiterated her objections to Alf who, in turn, reaffirmed his intention to marry. Pop, who liked Joan immediately, was far more welcoming, but he was overshadowed by the considerably more determined figure of his wife. The visit heralded an especially difficult period in the relationship between Alf and his mother.
One of Hannah Wight’s objections to her only son’s choice of future wife was that she did not come from a good enough family. Hannah, through her successful dressmaking business, had been mixing in some highly influential social circles. She had made elaborate dresses for several society weddings, and the thought of her only son marrying someone with very little money was too much to bear. Even worse, Alf told her that he and Joan were planning to be married quietly and unceremoniously, thus denying her the prospect of participating in a grand white wedding – one for which she certainly would have expected to have been asked to provide the dresses. She was not in any way rude to Joan during the visit, but her intense disappointment was something she could not fully hide.
Joan was certainly not frozen out by the rest of Alf’s family; they both received enormous support from the relations in Sunderland. Both his uncles, Bob and Matt, after meeting her for the first time, were quick to pass their vote of approval back to Hannah. Uncle Stan and Auntie Jinny felt similarly, as did Alf’s cousin, Nan. During this difficult time, these warm gestures of friendship and acceptance from Alf’s relatives would
never be forgotten by Joan. She made many lasting friendships with those open and friendly people of Sunderland.
Hannah, however, continued to voice her disapproval right up until the wedding day in November. Alf’s feelings are adequately revealed in a letter written only three days before the wedding:
My dear Mother and Dad,
It was nice to hear your voices the other night and it alleviated to a certain extent the black misery which has been periodically descending on me lately. I may as well tell you how I feel. If you folks were financially secure, I would be happier now than I have ever been which would be natural since I am going to marry the girl I love and who loves me.
You know, never in my life have I felt closer to you two; I seem to have grown up suddenly and life has taken quite a different aspect. I can see, now, everything in its proper place and with its proper value, and right on top of everything stand my father and mother surrounded by thousands of memories that have suddenly grown much clearer and more dear than ever. And yet, at the very same moment, I feel that you folks think I am letting you down and it is a horrible thought which has haunted me ever since that bad session we had on the phone….
It is queer, the things that pass through my mind, streams of little memories that are as clear as day to me now. I see you, Dad, coming in from Yarrows when I was playing with my new meccano. And you, Mother, washing my lip after I’d tried to knock that lamp post down. Dad teaching me how to ride my fairy cycle or me watching the back of your head when you were playing the piano in the ‘Alex’ and I was perched in the front row. Sunday school and the musical nights with Gus. Mother carting me in a shawl through railway barriers so that I could go for less fare and Dad exasperated over my music lessons. And those two years of pain I had; what would I have done without you when I often felt that I was finished with being strong and healthy?
All through those thoughts there is one thing stands out like a beacon; the wonderful way in which you put me first and gave me a chance to be something in the world. At this moment, I know that what I have and what I am, I owe entirely to you and never did any son appreciate the fact more…. And for goodness sake don’t think that you are losing me. You have got me more firmly and closely at this minute than you ever had when you were putting little silk blouses on me. And it will always be that way. And if you’re worried about my choice, you don’t need to. Joan isn’t the perfect creature and has her faults as we all have but I couldn’t find a better wife if I looked for the rest of my life.
She worries like mad over her folks too, as she does a lot to support them. They haven’t any money except what her old man is making and he hasn’t much of a job. When he was clerk of the council here, they had lots of money but now they are broke. Joan does a lot towards the running of their house apart from her wages. She does the shopping and a lot of cooking and general housework…. She could have married money several times over but she has chosen to come and share a bed-sitting room with me which proves a few things.
Now it is very late and my eyes are closing so I really must stop. Remember, as they say about here, ‘It’ll be right!’
This was an immensely difficult time for Alf, with his loyalties split between the girl he loved and his parents to whom he owed so much. His mother should never have worried about her son’s choice of wife, one who would look after him superbly all his life. Joan’s greatest pleasure was looking after people and it was not only Alf, but his children as well, who would benefit from this admirable quality. From the earliest days of their marriage, when she would cook, keep a clean home and faithfully answer the telephone for the practice, right up until the final months of his life, when she helped to nurse him through his incurable illness, she would be a totally dedicated wife. The determination to marry Joan Danbury in 1941 was never to be regretted for a moment.
Happy though he was at the prospect of marrying the girl of his choice, the stark response by his parents to his engagement – and, later, marriage – to Joan Danbury, threw Alf into an emotional turmoil. The debt which he felt he owed his parents was one he considered he could never repay, one which preyed on his mind to such an extent that it was partly responsible for a severe breakdown he would experience twenty years later. It was a debt he would, in fact, repay many times over.
James Alfred Wight and Joan Catherine Anderson Danbury were married at 8 o’clock on the morning of 5 November 1941 in the church of St Mary Magdalene in Thirsk. It was a bitterly cold day, and the sum total of five people attended. The best man was none other than his senior partner, Donald Sinclair, while Joan was given away by her employer, Fred Rymer, from the mill in Thirsk. The elderly Canon Young, who conducted the marriage ceremony, shivered with cold throughout and could hardly get through the proceedings fast enough.
At my parents’ Golden Wedding celebrations held at the Black Bull Inn near Richmond in 1991, my father reminisced, during an amusing speech, about his quiet little wedding all those years ago. His abiding memory was of Donald standing next to him, his teeth chattering with cold, and mumbling a long succession of ‘Amens’ at regular intervals, while Canon Young droned on in the icy church. At one vital point, the Canon asked Alf, ‘Will you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded husband?!’ He corrected himself upon receiving a blank stare. Alf would never forget his feelings on that happy day as he walked out of the church with his new bride. He wrote later, ‘I’ll always remember that sight – the cold frosty morning, the empty street facing us and the slanting beams of sunlight.’
It was an amusing experience for Joan and Alf to watch, many years later, the wedding of James Herriot and his bride in the television series ‘All Creatures Great and Small’. The occasion portrayed was a substantial one, with the bride wearing white and many notable people in attendance. The reality was so different; although not uncommon during the war years, few people will have had a more modest wedding ceremony.
Somewhat surprisingly, Joan’s parents, both of whom thoroughly approved of Alf as a future son-in-law, did not attend the wedding of their only daughter, despite living only a mile or so away from the church. However, they had their reasons. Apart from Joan’s father, Horace, being very ill at the time, they were aware of the problems between Alf and his parents and, knowing that Alf and Joan wanted a very quiet wedding, they decided to stay at home. With Alf’s parents having stated their reluctance to attend the wedding, together with difficulties presented in travelling around Britain in wartime, the result was a complete absence of both sets of parents on that unpretentious, but nevertheless, important day.
Alf and Joan had every justification for such a small and secretive occasion. A larger wedding, to which they would have felt compelled to invite many people, was, quite simply, beyond their financial horizons. Joan Danbury was in no better financial state than her husband: the sum total of her wedding dowry was a half-share in a pig which she owned in partnership with a man called Bob Barton. This big strong man, who drove the delivery lorry for Rymer’s Mill, could throw eight-stone sacks around as though they were tennis balls, but there was a soft streak to his nature. When the time came for the pig to be killed, Alf remembered the big man leaning on his shoulder, his eyes full of tears. In the course of many months looking after her, he had become deeply attached to this appealing creature.
‘Mr Wight,’ he said, his voice cracking with emotion, ‘that pig – Ah’m tellin’ yer, she were a Christian!’
There was some consolation, however. Not only was the meat from that pig, when roasted, some of the finest Alf had ever tasted, but Joan made some magnificent pork pies from some of the choicest cuts. Alf’s Uncle George Wilkins, who considered himself an expert in the art of pork-pie tasting, came down from Sunderland one day and asserted that he had never eaten anything finer. That wonderful pig had not died in vain; Joan’s dowry may have been a modest one but it provided an unforgettable gastronomic experience.
After the wedding ceremony, Alf and Joan had a champagne breakfast with Donald
at 23 Kirkgate before setting off on their honeymoon in the Yorkshire Dales. They stayed in the Wheatsheaf Inn, in the village of Carperby in Wensleydale. This small village inn is so proud of the fact that the future James Herriot spent two nights of his honeymoon there, a plaque on the wall describes it as ‘James Herriot’s honeymoon hotel’. The inn was famed for its good food all those years ago and the young couple, who were both tremendous eaters, made the most of it – wading into kippers, as well as bacon and eggs, for breakfast, with plenty of locally-made Wensleydale cheese and butter always available.
For the first two days of their honeymoon, Alf spent his time T.B. Testing cows in the hill farms of Wensleydale. This seems a rather unusual activity for such an important holiday but, with the practice becoming busier, he had insisted to Donald that he would combine work with pleasure.
In the event, those few days turned out to be very enjoyable. The farmers and their wives, amazed that the young couple were spending a working honeymoon, treated them to real Dales hospitality in the form of delicious farmhouse meals followed by gifts of ham, eggs and cheese – a real bonus in wartime when such delicacies were severely rationed.
One farmer’s wife, Mrs Allen of Gayle, situated at the head of Wensleydale, had repeatedly teased Alf about his marriage prospects. To her astonishment, he said to her just one day before his wedding, ‘I’ve taken your advice, Mrs Allen. I’m going to get married!’
‘Eeeh,’ she replied, ‘Ah’m right pleased! When?’
‘Tomorrow!’
‘Termorrer? But ye’re comin’ ’ere to read’t TB Test in a couple o’ days’ time.’
‘That’s right!’
What a surprise she received when she duly met his brand new bride, dressed in old trousers and scribbling down the numbers of the cows in the book.