Names and Dates

Whist undergoing an indentured engineering apprenticeship during 1955 - 1960 several apprentice friends in my year were often mentioning a girl called Gwen, who was a friend of their girlfriends. Most of these friends lived in and around London, and I lived in Kent, so we never met up socially. However, one day my friend Colin in 1961 during a general conversation mentioned Gwen was getting married, having never met, I asked how old she was, (why I don’t know) During that year, I unfortunately had a motor cycle accident that put me into hospital for 12 weeks; followed by 12 weeks physiotherapy, also ending a relationship I was in. The road in which the accident took place was Gibbon Road, outside Nunhead Cemetery, where an elderly gentleman leaned over (I was lying on the road) and said don’t worry mate you don’t have far to go. Unbeknown to me at the time was that Gibbons was in fact Gwen's maiden name. Gwen married in March 1963 but separated some weeks later filing for divorce siting cruelty as the reason. For the 1963 August Bank Holiday all the above friends were arranging a camping holiday break at Newhaven, Sussex to which I was invited. We all met up in North London to discuss the arrangements; this is where I first met Gwen. It was unbelievable, we both felt, as we had known one another for years. To cut a long story short, Gwen showed me a photograph of herself in her bridal gown, signing the Church Register in the vestry. A notice on the wall behind her had the words RU helping? Ironically RU are my initials, and I still have this photograph. From that first day we met, we never looked back. Before we could get married we had to wait for the decree absolute, and what day did the courts approve this, the 12th July, the date of my birthday. What a present. We had forty-eight and a half-wonderful years together, only losing Gwen earlier this year unfortunately to cancer.