The wedding of Kate and William was, undoubtedly, the highlight in 2011. It is said to have provided people with much-needed joy and celebration in a time of austerity and gloom.
I remember another such event, so long ago but never-to-be-forgotten by those of us who were there.
It must have been 1944/45, when the Americans came. We children were thrilled – chewing gum and candy for us, nylons for the older girls. Our neighbour, thinking of her own two sons far away from home, welcomed them into her small terraced house together with members of the British Forces also looking for a kind smile and a good meal.
I remember sitting half-way up their stairs, gazing down into the narrow passage, where a noisy crocodile of laughing people did the conga, from the back door through the two rooms to the front. I was ten years old.
It was on such a night that Mary met Carl. It was a whirlwind romance and the words ‘GI bride’ entered our vocabulary.
It was a time of extreme shortages but preparations for the wedding went ahead in a fever of excitement.
My mother was determined to provide the young couple with useful household items. Big linen flour sacks, begged from the grocer, were washed, unpicked, bleached and re-sewn into sheets, pillow-cases, tablecloths.
There had to be a cake. Everyone wanted to help. Mrs.Evans gave some butter, Mrs.Davies found a tin of treacle on her pantry shelf, Harry Smith brought eggs from his hens.
I remember the smell of that cake, cooking for hours, until it emerged large and brown. My father iced it, patiently sieving sugar into a bowl until it was smooth. He used some drops of cochineal from a bottle that had been in the cupboard for years, to make tiny pink roses around the edge. I remember cleaning the icing pump, my little finger scooping out remains of unbelievable sweetness.
Mary had acquired some parachute silk and Mrs. Brown, our local dressmaker, worked miracles transforming it into a long, shining dress. A piece of net curtain, boiled and starched, made a pretty veil held in place by a string of pearls borrowed from my grandmother.
There were three bridesmaids – Mary’s sister in their mother’s blue brocade ballgown, my cousin in her aunt’s pink taffeta and Mary’s best friend in a dress of lilac tulle with circular bands of coloured satin which had last appeared on the stage in our amateur operatic show. They looked lovely with coronets of twisted ribbon on their heads and bunches of violets in their hands.
I remember that wedding as if it were yesterday. We walked in our Sunday best to the chapel decorated with white marguerites
to match Mary’s bouquet – all from Bert Brown’s garden. Carl looked handsome in his beige American uniform. The women sniffed and dabbed their eyes as he placed the ring on Mary’s thin finger.
Our only village taxi brought the newly-weds back for, what seemed to us to be a feast.
It was a fairy tale and, for that one special day, we all felt like Royalty.
Joy James lives in South Wales and works for Barafundle CDs, a company producing personalised story CDs. She has three children and eight grandchildren and also writes in her spare time.
