At the party after a BATS production of “The Haunted Through-lounge and Recessed Dining Nook at Farndale Castle” I asked Sue if I could “Have a word”. She didn’t realise I had anything to suggest other than discuss when our respective children might next meet up and was just leaving when I reminded her I wanted to talk so she suggested I take her home. I surprised her when I turned right out of the car park away from the direction of her house and again when I told her that “I had fallen in love with her”. I had found I was always comfortable in her company and at the three months of rehearsals had observed her closely, more closely that was strictly necessary for producing the play. She said she had always liked me but that she was married and had never considered me romantically. However, she gave me a wonderful kiss when I dropped her off and next day, Sunday, she brought her daughter, Jo, round to play with Nicola as they were best friends. Pauline was in bed with a migrane and Sue and I chatted over cups of tea without broaching the subject uppermost in both our minds. I was hopeful as I hadn’t had an outright rebuttal. On Monday there was a fashion school at the school and I managed a brief chat with Sue in the interval, always aware that it was a public place. I didn’t see her at all on Tuesday and wanted to find out if Sue had had any further thoughts on my declaration so on Wednesday I decided to drop the children at school and wait to see if I could make contact. Sue was late, as usual, and in a bit of a state. “I need to talk” she said breathlessly, “can you meet me at lunchtime at Wimslow station?” I had booked the car in for a service and didn’t know how I was going to get there but I said yes anyway. I picked her up and stopped outside a wine bar in Alderley Edge that I knew but she said she wasn’t hungry so instead we went to Alderley Edge and went for a walk. I’ve no idea what we talked about. I just remember the wonderful feeling of joy, the huge weight lifting off my shoulders, the sense of freedom, of there being something to look forward to.
I didn’t tell Pauline what had happened as she was going on holiday for a week with her lady friends two days later and I didn’t want to ruin that for her. Whilst she was away my relationship with Sue developed further so on Pauline’s return I sat nervously waiting for her and told her as soon as she walked in. She hadn’t been expecting it, I don’t think she had been listening to the messages I had been giving her about how unhappy I was in the marriage for some time, and she was very distressed. I met up with Sue the next day, who was obviously very anxious about how I’d got on as she had already decided to leave John, her husband. She just said, “I’ve decided to leave John. Your taking notice of me has given me the confidence to do that. So don’t feel any commitment to me. Your marriage must be saved if it can be.” I can still see the tears in her eyes as she said this.
We decided to go away together the next weekend. Meanwhile I moved into the spare bedroom and I remember the long, long phone calls we had deep into the night. We had a couple of wonderful weekends away in luxury hotels, one in the Lakes and one in North Wales and met up as often as we could in the week but living with our spouses was not satisfactory. Sue took her children to her parents and I moved in with Mike. After a couple of weeks Mike confessed that he had started a relationship with Pauline and anyway was selling up. I then rented out a very basic terraced house in Middleport from Martin Gowans. I also rented office space at Longport Wharf where I tried to sell Point of Sale computer systems. My children were naturally very upset and blamed the breakup on me, as did the rest of my family to varying degrees. Nicola and Alisa came and stayed with me for some of the time and sometimes Jo and Carla did too. Sue used to stop as often as she could, leaving very early in the morning.
Pauline did not think that I deserved anything from the home as I was the one who had made the break and we made a temporary arrangement over the finances with me having to survive on £1,000 per month. It was a difficult time for me. The only friends who didn’t take sides on Pauline’s side was Martin (apart from Mike). Most of the villagers in Betley were also very partisan. Yet it was also a wonderful time because Sue and I were so happy.
Before the separation I had helped Mike out by financing a boat for him. In return I received 50% of the profit when it was sold. As I wasn’t really earning much I suggested that we could do this as a side line together. I thought it would also keep the friendship going. Unfortunately things didn’t work out so well when we bought boats that Mike’s Company did work on and we fell out big time about it. What was particularly galling was that people thought we’d fallen out over Pauline. I was actually very pleased that the two of them had got together as then I hadn’t left Pauline on her own and at last Mike had a partner and wasn’t so lonely.
Dougal found it very hard to accept the breakup and could hardly bring himself to be polite to Sue, even when the 3 of us spent the day together moving a canal boat from Congleton to Longport. In the summer he and Jo went off to Columbia before we all had a chance to reconcile ourselves to the new situation, which was very upsetting.
Pauline and I managed to divorce without too many problems and I then had a lump sum as she bought my share of our house. Sue’s husband John, moved out of their family home and I bought him out so the place became half mine. Jo and Carla lived with us but John had them every other weekend. Nicola and Alisa split their time between Wayside and Pine Trees. I set about transforming the property into a home that suited this arrangement, splitting one large bedroom so each of the 4 girls had their own bedroom. I also ripped up the carpet downstairs and sanded and varnished the parque flooring. We also redecorated the whole house, put in an expensive new kitchen and put a new office where the coal house had been. Over the years I transformed the garden into something we were proud of. We had a swing and trampoline and a water slide for the girls, a vegetable plot, a soft fruit garden, a herb garden, fruit trees and some lovely shrubs.
The children were hard work. Nicola, and to a lesser extent Alisa, blamed Sue for the breakup of my marriage and all four of them thought of the family as a them and us. We tried various systems to try to get cooperation from the girls, even having a book with a point system where pocket money was decided on the number of points. Good deeds were rewarded and bad deeds punished by the addition or deduction of points.
However, all four girls got on well together, in fact there was less friction between step-sisters than between sisters. Another factor that made live easier was that Pauline and John took their offspring off our hands every other weekend and they coincided so we had time to ourselves. We also managed to have holidays on our own. We went to Brittany the first year (1996), Bulgaria the second (1997), Hong Kong the third (1998), Zimbabwe and Malawi the fourth (1999), Columbia the fifth (2000) and South Africa the sixth (2001). We also took all 4 girls away with us, although the first year we decided instead to take them to a different theme park each day for one week
Nicola and Jo at Market Drayton pool
Alisa and Carla at Market Drayton pool
and we were granted a week in my previous marital caravan near Porthmadog as well.
Alisa and Carla at Black Rock Sands
Nicola and Jo at Black Rock Sands
Other years we took them camping in France, usually stopping with David and Anna, who lived near Canterbury, on the way down. They preferred to go to large sites with pools and, as they got older, bars. Their all out favourite was a municipal site at Saumur. We tried a couple of other options, the Coopers’ barn in the Dordogne and another holiday home in the Ceze valley, both absolutely lovely places but they were voted too quiet and boring by the girls.
Nicola took the breakup of my marriage particularly hard and was difficult to control. Jo looked up to her and joined in Nicola’s disruptive behaviour. Sue’s family welcomed me into it but Nicola, and to a lesser extent, Alisa didn’t really want to be part of it.
All Betty’s children, spouses and grandchildren went to a hotel near Nottingham to celebrate her 70th birthday. Sue and I shared a room with all 4 children but got hardly sleep because of Nicola and Jo’s antics. In the photo below Nicola refused to look at the camera and Jo only does ungraciously.
Group photo for Betty's 70th
Pine Trees had a large garden which Sue had tried to manage. When I moved in I brought a few plants from my previous garden and set about making it a garden to be proud of. I had to remove a number of Leylandii, trim others down to size, make a lawn where there had been two ugly fish ponds, get rid of vigerous growths of cooch grass from the two rockeries Sue had had made for starters. Over the years I developed a soft fruit garden, a herb garden, a vegetable plot. I also put in curved flower beds and made sense of the area just outside the conservatory, building a patio, a bbq and steps up to the two terraces at the back of the house. The first flight were made with slabs and brick risers whilst the rest from large square section logs rescued from the next door woodyard when that closed down.
See pictures
We also did quite a lot of building work during our stay there. I demolished a lean to that had originally served as a loo and which Sue used as a minute office and Stuart Taylor used the bricks, together with matching new ones to build an office, workshop and store.
After demolition of the old toilet block - moving the holly tree
The new office taking shape 1997
We also had to take off the garage roof as some of the timbers were sagging badly and, in the latter years, replace the roof tiles and chimneys of the house above roof level due to frost damage.
Sue continued to develop her Didactics work, selling equipment to schools. I had to start from scratch.
Sue at her desk in 1997 before we built the new office
Clive Butler, the Managing Director of ABC, offered me a job selling Point of Sale computer systems on a commission basis. I had had several years dealing with ABC as I installed their system in each of Bizar’s outlets and I was quite a fan. Never-the-less I didn’t enjoy telephoning companies to arrange appointments to demonstrate the equipment. ABC targeted the cycling industry and I attended several cycling trade shows round the country demonstrating our system.
Me with Clive Butler at a cycle trade show
Clive died in a plane crash but I continued to work for ABC for a while but Sandra, his widow, and Chris and Brian, his lieutenants fell out and I didn’t see a future for me with either party. However my son, James, was finding it a strain doing the accounts for his new company, Bluesky Communications Ltd. and I started helping him out, initially on an hourly rate basis but eventually on a part-time salary. I used to go down to London for monthly meetings, staying with James. The Company grew fast and eventually split a division off as Webabacus Ltd. They needed someone in the office at Bluesky to do the accounts but I continued to work for Webabacus for a bit longer.
In 2003 I decided that I was settled enough to propose to Sue which I did on Valentine’s Day. She had had a health scare and we realised that a husband had rights as next of kin that a live-in partner did not. She accepted and we were wed in Crewe registry office on 26th July.
Nicola and Alisa gradually stayed less and less with us but still spent several days there most weeks. Jo and Carla spent every other weekend with John and Tracy. We tried to maintain a normal family home for them all.