My parents have recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. They hosted a party in a local inn, and a good turnout of family and friends attended in very good spirits. At my father's 80th birthday celebrations in March this year he gave a speech (in case he didn't make it to this occasion), which extolled the virtues of my mother and professed his unconditional love for his children.
After giving it some thought I decided (not without trepidation) to write and give a speech at the golden wedding party. I am their eldest child, so I felt fairly well qualified to give an account at the occasion. I colluded with my siblings and aunt, and the following is edited highlights of the transcript of what I said in the room full of people to honour my parents.
Whilst I was speaking I had prepared a MS PowerPoint slide show of family photographs from the decades, starting with black and white shots of my parents as a young children in the 1930s and 1940s and moving through the decades until the present day. It was well received.
Golden Wedding Thoughts
2014 has been a significant year in the Joyce Family history. In March my father, Eddie Joyce, was 80 years old, and we celebrated in this room.
We listened (again) with interest and pleasure to his wonderful speech about my mother, Susan, which he said he intended to give today, but as we were all gathered together to celebrate his birthday, and he didn’t know whether they’d make it to 50 years together, he did it then.
He then gave his thoughts on the children of the marriage, namely, Kathryn, Trisha, Peter and Edward. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that he took us all by surprise - by revealing the depth of his feelings towards us in such a public way. Thank you father, from us all.
Now it’s payback time. You gave your speech in March, so I feel it incumbent upon me, as eldest child, to say a few words in return. In preparing this speech and colluding with certain people, Peter said ‘blimey Kath, you could write a book if we all said our bit’. Which I think was his way of saying it’s a bit long. So if you’ll all sit back, and give me about 10 minutes, I’ll begin.
Fifty years. Fifty years. This is an achievement to be celebrated and admired in equal measure. Of course, the story of Sue and Eddie goes back more than 50 years. They would have married earlier, but had to wait until Sue was 21 and her parent’s permission was no longer needed.
From this beginning we can see the determination that has bound these two so strongly together. Not just their traditional marriage vows in the Catholic Church, but their equal bloody-mindedness in showing the world that they’d stick together.
The world my parents grew up in was very different to how it is now. The Second World War was lived through and post-war austerity endured.
Formative years indeed, but as the photographs show, these were not miserable times. Hard work on the farm was the accepted norm. Thrift and make do and mend was second nature. And then came Rock’n’Roll. And the rest is history.
Theirs has been a traditional marriage. Eddie was the breadwinner, and Sue the home-maker, raising the family and welcoming us home from school.
Everybody here knows Eddie and Sue. But only four of us know what it’s like to be their children. They continue to be wonderful parents, offering advice and supporting us through all the mistakes we’ve made along the way…. And there have been many.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s the term ‘parenting’, as we know it today, had yet to be invented. Your parents’ word was the rule to be obeyed, and chastisement was applied in the knowledge that it was for the child’s own good, and would help them learn the error of their ways.
Like most families, a quick smack was usually all that was needed to bring us back into line. However, unlike most families, we had the added deterrent of the ‘Board of Education’.
I assume this had been given to my parents by Aunty May from America. It was a wooden paddle which hung over the fireplace at The Poplars, and which had a drawing of two children bending over with stars encircling their throbbing bottoms where the paddle had been applied. I think the implied threat/message was enough to keep us in line, I don’t think it was ever used on any of us.
In the 1970s my parents had a fine garden, which my father tended assiduously, and which he would enter in the annual Police gardening compeition. I believe his redcurrants were once mistaken for tomatoes…
My mother would make delicious strawberry jam, and we grew up big and strong, as Grandad Joyce would say, on all the home produce. There were hens to provide eggs, and about 20 Turkeys arrived at the end of the summer (?) to be fattened up and sold at Christmas. Another way of making extra cash was Eddie’s holly wreaths. The family moss picking expedition on Pendle Hill would be followed by many evenings of holly wiring, guaranteeing sore fingers and much wingeing.
I remember my father making blackberry and elderberry wine and other alcoholic beverages, which he stored down in the cellar of the Poplars. There was a yeasty smell down there, and big bottles with rubber stoppers and glass tubes and pipes. It looked like some mad scientists laboratory.
When pressing the fruit, he’d wait until we’d had our Sunday night bath, and then get me and Trisha to stand on and squash the berries in the washing up bowl, holding our nighties above our knees so as not to stain them. My mother was not overly impressed by that.
Some of the regular family parties stick in my memory. Christmas and Boxing Day were at our house or Trinity Cottage, and New Years Eve was sometimes at Bolton Hall Farm.
The adults seemed to enjoy themselves and let their hair down, sometimes getting a bit carried away with their emotions. I especially remember Aunty Janeen’s ‘golden boots’ impression at Trinity Cottage one Boxing Day. Trisha says it was “ Why did you have to die Elvis?” that made an impression with her….
Bolton Hall Farm always had a spooky undercurrent, which was exaggerated when playing ‘murder’ in a firelit room with the aunts and uncles and their various friends, and further exaggerated when Uncle Michael would wait under the stairwell and make ghostly moaning noises, or bang on the stairs when you were going up to go to the loo!
My father didn’t really understand that his occasional/infrequent childminding duties required his presence - he once had to look after my sister and me, but it co-incided with him popping into the police station to finish something off. We were probably being annoying, so so he put Trisha and me into one of the holding cells ‘to see what it felt like‘, and then promptly got caught up, and forgot about us …. For about an hour. It was only his colleagues checking on us that got us released… scarred? Not me.
Although it must have been hard work for our parents making ends meet, as children we were never aware of any hardships, and felt rich in our freedoms. We had the run of Copster Green, and the fields behind us, and gangs of children (the Carruthers, the Hutchings, the Franklands) to play with. Back then, this was normal. Today we’d probably have been classed as ‘feral’. At the end of each day’s playing out we’d hear our Mum calling from the back door to come in for tea.
Bonfire night on Copster Green was legend. We spent what seemed like forever collecting wood and rubbish from all the households, and then the night itself would see us and other family groups huddled round biscuit tins of the smallest fireworks you’ve ever seen.
The best surprise happened one Christmas at the Poplars. We came downstairs to see what presents Father Christmas had left, and found, in the front room, a slide. How he got it there down the chimney, I’ll never know, but my Dad soon had it in the back garden, and it was well played on for many years.
There’s been a lot said about Eddie.
My mother on the other hand seems to have taken all this family madness or quirkiness more or less in her stride. Whilst superficially father wore the trousers in the family, Sue was the one who meant what she said… and followed it through. We didn’t have to ‘wait ‘til your father got home’.
Where Sue is concerned it’s evident that there was more than one detective in the family. If, heaven forbid, we ever did something that perhaps we shouldn’t have done, she was more than equal to gathering the evidence and letting you know about it.
Trisha remembers being mortified as a teenager, when staying up late and being cool with her friends, and Sue would appear at the door, in her nightie, to tell them in no uncertain terms that it was time to go home.
Sue’s major passion is her family, and like a lioness she is tenacious in her love for them all. If ever there was a disagreement Sue stepped in. Not for Sue Eddie’s adage of ‘Never go to bed on an argument - Stay up and fight‘. Her peacekeeping skills should be observed and adopted by the United Nations.
Sue has often demonstrated the power of prophecy. When Blackburn Rovers were top of the league she couldn’t relax or celebrate, because she knew the only way was down…. And how right she was.
She is unassuming, artistic, and maintains an active participation in badminton and tai chi. Her garden is well tended and colourful and draws lots of compliments, and we could also say the same of her, as she continues to effortlessly look much younger than those of a similar vintage.
When my parents finally became grandparents, after years of waiting, in October 2000 their family grew again, and has continued to grow. They now have six grandchildren who they dote on, and who in turn adore them. That the grandchildren obviously love them is plain to all to see.
To conclude. We all know Sue and Eddie. They are generous, adventurous, hard working, determined, energetic, inspirational and stubborn. They have more than lived up to their marriage vows, and have become an example to us all.
Their love for each other and their family is not gushing or superficial. It is not spoken out loud but demonstrated with actions. It is solid and dependable, no-nonsense and compassionate, constant and enduring.
Although we don’t say how much we love them out loud often enough, I’m sure they know we do.
Finally I’d like to read you a small passage from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières which best fits how I think we can regard Eddie and Sue’s relationship after 50 golden years.
Love is a temporary madness,
it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides.
And when it subsides you have to make a decision.
You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together
that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.
Because this is what love is.
Love is not breathlessness,
it is not excitement,
it is not the promulgation of eternal passion.
That is just being "in love" which any fool can do.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away,
and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.
Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground,
and when all the pretty blossom have fallen from their branches,
they find that they are one tree and not two.
I would now like to take this opportunity to propose a toast. Please be upstanding and join with me in toasting Eddie and Sue, our golden couple.
