Last weekend we celebrated our fiftieth wedding anniversary with a modest family luncheon which included our four children, their spouses and seven grandchildren. One of our grandsons is old enough and I suspect capable enough of siring his own child so I must take him aside and talk to him about the birds and the bees and hopefully delay that inevitability. I’m not old and doddery enough yet to be a great-grandfather; a personal view that might well be disputed by the other members of the family.
My wife says I’m one in a million. The wrong one! Actually I just made that up. In fact, I suspect that even before I wake each morning she gets on her hands and knees and thanks her maker for leading her to such an inspiring choice of husbands. I must admit though that this is pure speculation, and may have no basis in fact.
The truth is she must have come close to leaving me just minutes after we were married. We tied the knot on Masterton Show day in 1963 at around 5 o’clock in the afternoon, and after the nuptials we were greeted by our butcher’s shop staff dressed as funeral directors, complete with top hats, forming a guard of honour at the church door.
They and some friends had also sent off the taxis and had replaced these with horses and gigs. We were then paraded down the main street, now full of people coming home from the show, bagpipers in front, the undertakers next and the horses and two gigs with the bridal party bringing up the rear. My new bride, who hailed from Eketahuna, didn’t know what she’d struck.
I was determined to get even at the future weddings of those who had perpetrated this and I didn’t have to wait long. Lew Milne was to marry Alison Cooke in Greytown. I was to be a groomsman. Lew was a stock agent and had organised the horses and carts for our wedding from Tom Hood at Kopuaranga. Retribution was in sight.
It had always occurred to me that it would be exceptionally funny if somebody responded when the minister intoned the words: “If anyone can show any just cause why these two should not be lawfully joined together in holy matrimony, let them now speak or hereafter forever hold their peace.” Mind you, it’s quite difficult to find anyone who will actually make a response. Locally no one was prepared to do it.
I had a friend in Wellington named Ian Dawson who owned the Sorrento coffee bar and managed The Libretto’s, New Zealand’s foremost rock band at the time, and I rang him to see if he could find an outgoing Wellingtonian who might be able to assist. He rang back and said he’d found someone, but the price would be quite high. I agreed to pay whatever it cost.
The wedding was at 4.30 p.m. at the Methodist establishment at the north end of Greytown. The groom and we groomsmen were resplendent in white ties and tails and the little church was packed; standing room only. When the minister, I’ll never forget his name, Reverend Hornblow, made the statement I was anticipating “If anyone can show any just cause etc., speak now or forever hold your peace.” there was the usual pregnant pause.
Then suddenly a dapper little chap in a dark suit and thin black tie came running up the aisle; “Stop the wedding, stop the wedding,” he cried. You could have cut the tension in the air with a knife. My expensive thespian got to the startled couple, looked them up and down and said, “Oh no. Sorry! Wrong wedding” and ran back out the other aisle.
At this juncture I assumed that the congregation would burst out laughing, the wedding would continue without further delay, and afterwards I would be congratulated by all and sundry for organising the ultimate practical joke. Not so. Close family members of the bride suffered discomfiture; some quite seriously. Nobody laughed, not the least the Reverend Hornblow, who stumbled through the rest of the ceremony as though it was his first outing. There was a pall over the breakfast and I was sent to Coventry by most of the guests, though I must say the bride and groom took it in good humour.
On the Sunday I sat down and wrote a long letter of apology to the brides’ parents. The Methodist vestry held an emergency meeting on Monday and considered taking me before a church tribunal to discourage other misguided humourists from attempting the same prank. However, they had seen the letter I had written to Mr. and Mrs. Cooke, assumed I was repentant, and asked that a similar letter be sent to them, and all would be forgiven. I couldn’t write that second letter quickly enough.
The Sunday News ran the story, describing me as having “a curious sense of humour,” whatever that means. They asked for comment from prominent clergy in Auckland. Most were strongly condemnatory.
I was more circumspect at future weddings of friends.
The dapper Wellingtonian who had made the foray up the church aisle was a regular patron at the Sorrento coffee bar, an Argentinean named ‘Chico.’ They never did send me the bill. I’m not sure whether they forgot or if they felt sorry for me for all the trouble I had got myself into.
I’d like to think it was the latter. Though to be fair, I probably didn’t deserve the sympathy.
