Looking back...

Thumbing through my 1973 diary, I found that thirty-odd years later, one or two things had eluded my memory.
Why did I go to Doncaster on March 17^th at 10am?
What was the attraction of visiting an Avon cosmetics display in June?
Who or what was Popcorn? (August 15^th) Possibly a group that was appearing at one of my club bookings, I dunno!
And who the hell was Ingrid? I found her name in the back of the diary on the phone nos page.
I rely heavily on old diaries to record events in my blog. Although I can recall the salient points of our life together, I find it very helpful to be able to add specific times and details to these events. I have kept a diary for most of my life and I still have many of them going back to the mid Fifties.
Most of the entries I can remember; especially the traumatic early days of 1973 when I realised I was in love with Iris and couldn’t do anything about it. Fortunately, that state of events didn’t last long.(Read my early blogs for January 2006.)

1974, however, was entirely different. By now, we were living as man and wife half the time; a far cry from the uncertainty of a year ago.
January 1974 saw happier times than January 1973 and February marked our first anniversary.
April 1974 saw us in Paris for the Easter weekend. I shall be writing about that in due course.
May 1974 was when my mother discovered our secret. (See blog May 2006.)
July 1974 saw us ‘married’ at Gretna. (See blog July 2006)

It was a year since we had first started our relationship and from that shaky beginning, grew a bond that lasted until her death. We thought that nothing could ever spoil our love for each other and indeed, nothing ever did.