My true love story
It was the Swinging Sixties when Joseph O’Sullivan, now
73, courted Daphne, now 75, taking her to all the best shows in London. Now living in East Wittering, West Sussex, the couple celebrate 53 years of the good life...
I met Daphne when I left university early in 1968 and started work at GLC (Greater London Council) drivers’ licensing department at Sidcup in Kent. Daphne was working on the counter and took my papers to the manager.
Our first date was to see A Man For All Seasons at the Regal cinema in Sidcup although as Daphne remembers, we didn’t see much of the film! As we lived so close to London, we used to go see all the big London shows like Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar.
We went to the Talk Of The Town at the Leicester Square Hippodrome to see Frankie Vaughan for our engagement – he seemed really old at the time, but he was only 41!
We finished up in Annabel’s nightclub but we didn’t feel trendy enough among all the other young clubbers.
We celebrated Daphne’s 21st birthday in the revolving restaurant at the top of the GPO tower where we ordered Coca Cola, or “black champagne”, as our waiter snobbishly told us. Daphne persuaded me to go back to the University of Essex to
finish my degree and in 1970 we got married.
Afterwards I went to work for the Prudential at their imposing red brick offices in Holborn, London, while Daphne went back to the GLC.
However, shortly after, she left, as we had our wonderful daughter, Shivaun, in 1971, then our amazing son Ryan in 1976.
We’ve now got two strapping grandsons, 18-year-old Louie and Thomas, 16, and our lovely granddaughter Dorothea, who is five going on 45, and bosses us all around every weekend when she visits with her dad.”
■ How did you meet the love of your life? Send a current photo and wedding picture to siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk