Travelling Companion and I lived abroad for more than a quarter of a century. We got to know plenty of corners of Europe; we kept in touch with the parts of Britain where the people closest to us lived, London and Manchester and southeast Scotland; but it’s only now that we’ve retired to London that we’re joining a wider network of friends, going to a wider network of places. This weekend we went to a glorious wedding party in Chippenham in Wiltshire.
The music at weddings used to be mostly discos. At ours we had some jazz. When Schoolmaster Nephew got married in St Andrew’s, fifteen years ago or even more, there was Scottish country dancing. I danced with Mother-in-law with joy. Now many weddings have a ceilidh (pron. kayley). Daughter and Son-in-Law had one, there was one at the wedding of the Admiral and the Border Psychiatrist and there was one yesterday afternoon. I love them. Nearly everyone will join in, you necessarily dance with strangers as well as with people you know, and no one (except a cross lady on whose foot I once trod) cares how badly you do it.
I think this preponderance of ceilidhs is a fine example of cultural progress. There was also a poet, who wrote on a typewriter for us a haiku about poppies,
and there were tins of beer labelled with a painting of the happy couple. A biplane flew over but I think that was just coincidence.
Our friend the Computer Pongo was there with her daughter. She told me that it was the father of the bride who, in the late 70s, convinced her to switch from a science degree to computer science. Our friend the Retired Contortionist was there. He is going to retrain in gardening. He wore earrings of gold-leafed poppy heads.
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The day before we went to Lacock Abbey.
This turned out to complement my recent visit to Julia Margaret Cameron’s house on the Isle of Wight (https://paulhhodson.wordpress.com/2023/11/12/cycling-on-the-isle-of-wight/): Henry Fox Talbot made the first photographic negative here.
In the street outside the village pub there was morris dancing.
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I haven’t needed a tie since I retired but wanted one for the party. I found a big bag of them left over from work days, sent most to the charity shop but kept these three.
The first is (literally) my old school tie. I bought the second when I got my first proper job. I had no idea of what you had to wear; a friend took me to Brent Cross to buy a blue suit and a tie. I bought the third for my Auntie Sylvia’s funeral, also when I was in my twenties. I hope not to be needing it for a while but imagine I will do eventually. I wore the yellow one at the party, along with a (smarter) (more capacious) blue suit.
Paul Hodson 