1991

On the long, lonely winter days in a mostly closed Morecambe I spent a lot of time thinking about the future, as well as studying, playing scalextric and watching Question of Sport. I consulted the bank and barclaycard balances and made a decision, it wouldn’t be a big or expensive one, but I was sure that Jackki would love it. I ignored my timetable and made an impromptu Thursday trip to Liverpool, having asked Jackki to book a table somewhere nice for a Valentines Day meal together. We took a taxi to a pub she fancied but hadn’t tried that was in the middle of a stretch of wasteland down by the docks, it’s probably been flattened now but was a fairly typical large dining pub for the time although I remember sitting upstairs so it probably had nice views of the Mersey in daylight. Not a particularly memorable place but it became a memorable night when, after the meal, heart racing and palms sweating I dropped to one knee and asked Jackki to marry me. She said yes and was delighted with H Samuel’s 2nd cheapest diamond ring as her engagement ring.

Although I had been aware of her uncertainty about the future, I could see that tension disappear almost immediately and I was delighted to see just how happy this had made her, for me it was just an obvious thing that we would be merging our lives together after graduation but clearly Jackki had been less certain. The squeals of excitement when she shared the news with the girls when we returned to her house were great to hear and we then trekked across to Manchester for the weekend to share the news with friends and family. I found all this a little uncomfortable, but the positive reactions were genuine and warm.

I was applying for engineering graduate training scheme jobs nationally and was lucky enough to get job offers in Gateshead and Rugby for very similar companies, I preferred the people I met at NEI Control Systems and as a northern lad this felt like the better. Jackki had decided that teaching was a good use of her science degree with very little prospect of graduate employment otherwise and set about applying for a PGCE course in Newcastle once I had decided to choose Gateshead. Both of these were all settled by around Easter so we could focus on exams and made plans to spend the summer with my parents in Scarborough. We had been talking about doing the Coast to Coast walk and decided we would give it a go at the start of the summer immediately after our graduation ceremonies and started to purchase basic equipment and a new tent.

Remarkably our graduation ceremonies were to happen on the same day in early July and we had been spending the time prior to this mainly in Lancaster including attending the all night Graduation Ball at very short notice. I remember the spring in our step as we were saying goodbye at Lancaster station as Jackki headed to Liverpool to meet her family knowing this would be the last such farewell for some time.

We packed our huge rucksacks into the tiny boot of the old Honda, aka the Batmobile due to its rather funky vents on the bonnet and were driven around Morecambe Bay to the starting point of the C2C at St. Bees. Aunty Elsie and Uncle Charles were delighted to be helping and excited for our journey ahead, they photographed us dipping our boots and waved us off as we headed up the cliffs to begin the walk in lovely early summer weather. We covered about 10 miles that first afternoon and then wild camped above Cleator.

Day 2 was 13 miles in pouring rain to the wonderful Black Sail Hut at the top of Ennerdale and then a shorter day of about 6 miles of up and downs into the campsite at Rosthwaite in very high winds. Another wet day of 10 miles saw us plodding soaked to the skin and miserable into Grasmere where we decided a B&B was in order, the first one we spotted was run by the Quakers but seemed nice. There were a few raised eyebrows and we pretended to be a newlywed couple before they would give us a room around which we proceeded to hang wet clothes and tents before showering and behaving like newlyweds. As we got ready to go out for dinner I started to question how lightly Jackki may have packed for the trip when she produced a red dress, stilettos and a full makeup bag from her rucksack, by far the most glamourous woman out in Grasmere that night. At breakfast with the pensioner crowd the next morning we seemed to be quite popular and were fed a starter of toast and cereal which we nibbled on while waiting for the full english. I turned down the boiled egg that was offered next, much to the surprise of the waitress but I didn’t want spoil my fry up, after a few further minutes people started to leave the room and it became clear that breakfast was over. I was distraught at splashing out £14.50pp and not getting a fry up, but at least we were warm, dry and had ordered a packed lunch to take with us.

The short walk of around 8 miles up to Grisedale Tarn and down into Patterdale was the best weather we would see on the whole walk, and it was a route we had done before on our weekend trips to the Lakes but the packed lunch was awful, so we had to eat out again before camping in Patterdale. Low cloud, rain and wind returned with a vengeance for our last full day of walking in the Lake District so an exhausting 12 miles or so took us to a wild camp somewhere along Haweswater. Jackki was thoroughly miserable and wet again so we felt we had earned a rest day on reaching Shap the next morning and pitched the tent in the back garden of the Bulls Head for £1.50 and spent far more than that in the bar all afternoon and evening. We departed Shap the next morning but it was clear Jackki was not relishing it, the air was tense to say the least and when she strained her leg climbing a stile just outside the village that was as far as we were going. I carried her rucksack back to the pub and she limped along hamming up her injury to make sure I didn’t change my mind about giving up, we cadged a lift to Penrith and then got the train across the Scarborough, defeated. The train seemed to cure Jackki’s limp rather quickly, something I may have mentioned once or twice over the years ahead!

As I had a job lined up to start in September I was determined not to be working over the summer, much to my Dad’s disgust, I was heard to mutter “I’ve got 40 years of working ahead from September, a few weeks now wont hurt”. Jackki was with me in Scarborough but was keen to be paying her way, she had another year of university to survive so spent the summer working, initially in Olivers Mount Cafe (run by an arsehole apparently, she told him so when she quit) and then serving ice creams in a council kiosk at The Corner Cafe. I was her personal chauffeur and spent my days walking the dogs and very little else. At some point in August, we did a flat finding trip up to Newcastle and after seeing some very dodgy areas found ourselves a lovely basement flat underneath a video shop on Rectory Road, Gateshead.

We packed the car and headed up to Gateshead in September ready for me to start work and Jackki to start her teacher training PGCE in Newcastle. This would be our first proper home together and all offers of free furniture were accepted including a 3-piece suite from my Gran’s neighbour in Morecambe. We enjoyed being so close to town and since my shopping allergy had not developed at that time, we would spend many hours wandering the Metro Centre window shopping. Looking back it is hard to figure that we were only in that flat for such a short period, we headed out and about to get to know the wider area and came across seemingly affordable new build houses that we fell in love with. Before Christmas we had agreed a mortgage and placed a deposit on 38 The Croft, Sherburn Hill and would pop down there to monitor progress with the build every weekend.

1992

We hired a van and moved ourselves to Sherburn Hill at the end of January 1992 into our beautiful new 2 bed home, this would be the start of a lot of exciting things to say the least. Even looking back it is hard to believe we went from uncertainty to engagement to jointly owning a home in less than a year, it felt perfectly natural and unrushed at the time.