MONTY & SYLVIA

Monty and I met when we were both doing our postgraduate teacher training year at Aberdeen College of Education in 1972. My landlady, who had been on the same course as Monty the previous year at the College of Commerce, thought we would get along well and asked us both to babysit for her young son. I made a lemon meringue pie for the occasion and this seemed to go down well! I’m not sure whether Monty took a liking to me, or to the lemon meringue pie, but we got on very well and continued to do so!

In the course of our conversation it turned out that our families were good friends and that we had both met before. On one of our stays in Shetland, Monty had taken our family on a boat trip to the island of Papa Stour for the day. However, the fact that Monty was seven years older than me meant a world of difference at that time. He was a young man of eighteen and I was a girl of only eleven on that outing, so needless to say we hardly noticed each other!

So for the next few months we spent as much time together as we could. Then on Valentine’s Day 1973 Monty proposed and I accepted. Everything happened so quickly with our whirlwind romance that we were married in King’s College Chapel, Aberdeen on August 1st, 1973, only eight months after meeting each other. Our wedding day was very special, although it did have some funny moments, as all the best weddings do!

The first snag was the fact that I went down with a bad dose of the flu a week before the wedding. This resulted in me having to dose myself up to the eyeballs with all manner of medication. I’m still convinced to this day that this is how Monty managed to persuade me to walk up the aisle - I seriously was floating in a hazy bubble of cold and flu remedies! This meant that Monty was left in sole charge of the last minute arrangements, which he fulfilled excellently - apart from organising a taxi to take his parents to the chapel!

As King’s College Chapel is a very popular wedding venue in the summer months, we were only allocated a half hour slot for our wedding. I arrived there in plenty time and couldn’t understand why I was being told to keep circling around in my taxi. What had happened? Had Monty taken cold feet? It seemed unlikely, but who knew… Eventually it transpired that Monty’s parents had not yet arrived and I was meant to wait outside until they did. In the end because of time constraints I had to go in and the ceremony began. My future parents-in-law staggered in a side door five minutes later; to her chagrin Monty’s mum Ruby tripped as she entered, drawing even more attention to their tardy arrival. It transpired they had been waiting in vain for the taxi to arrive, and had finally been quickly driven to the chapel by their host in the guest house.

Ruby was fated even further as the day progressed. The weather was slightly drizzly and her beautiful wide brimmed straw hat bore the brunt of this. It began the day very jauntily, but gradually sank lower and lower as the dampness took its toll! If you look closely at the group photo you can see the aforementioned hat drooping somewhat sadly. In the photo you will also see my mum’s beautiful dress. We had searched high and low for an outfit for her, but found nothing suitable. In a weak moment I volunteered to make one for her. Although I had done some dressmaking in the past, I had never tackled anything quite so elaborate. I was very proud and undeniably relieved, when the dress turned out to be beautiful and looked remarkably elegant on her.

All in all, we had a wonderful day, with my brother Ian as best man, and Monty’s sister Deborah as bridesmaid. We spent our honeymoon in a caravan in the little village of Cruden Bay. It rained most of the time but somehow that didn’t seem to bother us too much. It was an absolutely beautiful, tranquil spot.

So there we were, married and both about to start our teaching careers in the brand new school of St Kentigern’s Academy in Blackburn.

We only just managed to get through our first year of teaching by the skin of our teeth, but you can find out more about that experience and about our next few years in the ‘Mainland Scotland’ section.