Wed for 58 years and closer than ever... no joking

TOMORROW is the wife’s wedding anniversary. Old joke but it still raises a wintry smile – sometimes.

The 58th this year: bronze, an alloy of tin and copper. Two elements stronger when combined.

We were married in Cramond Kirk, Edinburgh, by the Rev Campbell Maclean, a former Navy officer who commanded landing craft in the Second World War. He was an extraordinary man, full of insight on human nature, and compassionate. He must have been, to listen to a 19-year-old student who hitch-hiked overnight to the Scottish capital, asking to wed his pregnant girlfriend Lynne.

It sounds almost quaint now but you had to be 21 then to marry without parental permission – and my father refused to give it. Nowadays you’d just live together and to hell with the world. I’m not convinced that is an improvement.

The Rev Maclean, a Highlander from the fishing and crofting world of northwest Scotland, took us under his wing.

She lived in the Manse. I was billeted far away with a teacher in House O’hill Brae.

No more hanky-panky. Our baby was left with Lynne’s mum in Wakefield. After the ceremony Campbell drove us to the A1 and we hitch-hiked south for a one-night honeymoon in a Berwick-upon-tweed B&B.

We started married life with 30 shillings (£1.50). If anything, the Plague Year has brought us closer. I only wish Campbell, who died in 2000 at the age I am now, had lived longer to see his judgment vindicated.

Early 1963 was the coldest winter since 1947. Right now it feels like we’re slowly coming out of something very similar.

I hope the outcome is the same. Thanks, Lynne. Sorry about the bad joke.