18 1957: DorothyAnne marries me!
18 <> 1957: DorothyAnne marries me!
Gwen’s and DorothyAnne’s converted-garage apartment was a popular gathering spot for some of the Warner Beach lifesavers. Not surprisingly, of course, because here were two very pretty girls living in an apartment standing on its own where it was possible to play records without inconveniencing any neighbours. The son of the owner of the house to which the garage belonged was also one of the gang. Brian, one of the lifesavers, was Gwen’s boyfriend. DorothyAnne at that stage was not going out with anyone because she was engaged and everyone respected that. It is not very clear how she and I fell in with each other, but we did quite soon after she broke off the engagement (which was not on my account). Afterward when asked, DorothyAnne would say “I married Jessop for his motorbike, but then he went and sold it!” The motorbike may have had a little to do with it because, of all the other possible bidders for her attention among the chaps that gathered at the flat, only Boet with his motorbike, Gwen’s boyfriend Brian with his MG, and an older man with a car had any means of transport. It was easy for me to say “Let’s go for a ride” and we would get on the bike and go. Once it was clear that DorothyAnne and I were going together, no one tried to come between us although the older man still had hopes that things could change. However, he was a genuine chap who remained a friend of ours and used to visit us after we were married.
The first time we went out together was probably in October, 1956. I think the occasion may have been when DorothyAnne and I went with Gwen and Brian to have drinks at the Amanzimtoti Hotel. Afterwards we all walked back to the apartment along the beach. I can’t remember now but I imagine that as we walked I felt for DorothyAnne’s hand and she did not pull away. However, what I do remember is that, while Gwen and Brian went off in one direction, DorothyAnne and I lay on the sand for a while looking at the stars. And that was the beginning for us of the fulfilment of that “yearning for the feel of a female hand in yours (or, I suppose, if you are a woman, for a man’s hand in yours); for the closeness of a hug and a kiss; for the feeling that there is someone there waiting for the touch of your hand. . . . . . It’s not love to begin with; love is a commitment which follows later when intimacy has set the course”. That love, declared in our readiness to commit to it in the marriage vow, followed not long after – for the time from that feel of our hands in each other’s to the day of our marriage was a mere three months.
When I left the men’s residence (and University), I went to the restaurant owned by Fossie’s brother, Basil, on the corner of the Esplanade (Victoria Embankment) and Aliwal Street. The two of them shared a ground-floor bachelor flat in the building next-door to the café. Fossie would have been at work so I imagine I waited at the restaurant until he came from the office. Basil was away at the time so Johnny let me have his bed until I could sort myself out. I had the job with the Customs Clearing and Forwarding Agency, not far away from Fossie’s flat, in Mazeppa Street near the docks (in those days work was quite easy to come by — for members of the white race, that is). While staying with Fossie, I still used to ride down to Doonside to see Gwen and DorothyAnne of an evening after work or at the weekend. It may have been during that phase that DorothyAnne and I had that first walk on the beach which was the beginning of our love affair.
After about two or three weeks, it may even have been a month or so, Basil was due back and I had to leave. DorothyAnne’s and Gwen’s bedroom-sitter occupied the main portion of the double garage but there was a small spare room added during the conversion which became my ‘home’, the only furnishings being a kitchen chair and a camp stretcher which DorothyAnne borrowed for me from a friend.
The work at the Clearing and Forwarding Agency was, well, just work. I had less money to spend but I still drank whenever I had the opportunity, on some occasions going out at lunchtime for a brandy and coke. One Saturday I bought a half jack of brandy for the weekend but when I arrived with it at the apartment I dropped it and it smashed on the cement floor. DorothyAnne really felt so sorry for me, which, of course, made me want her even more if that was possible! I don’t know what or where I ate during the day at work but DorothyAnne fed me in the evenings and at the weekends. Boet still sometimes came down to Doonside in the evening to visit — and go for a drink. It was on one such occasion that DorothyAnne and I and Boet were lying on the patch of lawn in front of the apartment when I said to Boet in Zulu “Auw, ngiya i’tanda le’ntombi. Ngi funa uku yighane” which translated is, “Oh, I love this girl. I want to marry her!”. Boet replied “I ghane!”, meaning, with the proper inflection of the voice, “Well then, marry her!”.
That must have been toward the end of November, before Boet left Durban. I probably proposed to DorothyAnne soon afterward, and I guess it was more in the form of an assumption than a formal proposal, something like, “Shall we get married?”, to which DorothyAnne would have replied, “Yes, okay”.
Following the proper decorum, I wrote to DorothyAnne’s father in England formally requesting his permission for me to marry her and apologising for the fact that I had proposed to DorothyAnne before getting his permission. I received his reply dated the 30th December, 1956, in which he wrote:
“Dear Mr Sutton,
“Thank you for your letter. I was amazed at the contents as I had never heard of you to my knowledge. I’m not a bit worried about the breach of etiquette about which you are so apologetic, but I am rather concerned at your headlong approach to the question of marriage.
“Your description of your position in the firm for which you are working is very vague — clerk may be the humblest pen pusher or someone in quite a responsible position — and I am very concerned at the casual reference to the fact that Dorothy will have to continue working after marriage. I think that you ought to be in a position to support her if you intend to marry her.
“However, I realise only too well that Dorothy Anne is of age, has a will of her own, and can please herself. I have no doubt that she will do just that.
“I have written to Dorothy Anne and told her that while, of course, I cannot reasonably object to her getting married I do advise her to “hasten slowly”. I think a few months longer engagement would be a good thing for both of you. You both have a lifetime ahead of you and there is no need to marry in haste and repent at leisure.
“I expect from the foregoing you will imagine I am a crusty so-and-so. Maybe I am, but I happen to have seen a lot more of this world than you and Dorothy together and know from personal experience just what misery a hasty decision can entail.
“Please write and let me know what you have decided after talking things through again with Dorothy Anne.
“Yours sincerely,
“Douglas F. Egerton.”
(In passing, DorothyAnne’s father, Mr Douglas F. Egerton was an Inspector in the Metropolitan Police in London and was one of the men responsible for the development of the Dial 999 system.)
I agree now in retrospect that Mr. Egerton had a point and DorothyAnne was taking quite a risk in marrying me. All I had to offer was a motorbike, a job as a junior clerk earning hardly enough to support one person let alone two, and an ongoing thirst for alcohol.
But life has a way of working things out. I doubt that DorothyAnne and I spent much time thinking it over as her father had suggested, and I don’t know if I did write to him again with our decision, but on Saturday 19th January, 1957, DorothyAnne and I were married in the Magistrate’s Court in New Hanover, Natal ( 50 years later on the 19th January, 2007, we celebrated our 50th Wedding Anniversary at a dinner with our four children, son-in-law, daughter-in-law and our granddaughter Zoë. The next day we were joined by many friends at the Mount Nelson Hotel in Cape Town at a party arranged for us by our two daughters.)
I had in the meantime bought an engagement ring on the never-never from The French Jewellers in West Street and given it to DorothyAnne which, of course, was not the right thing to do because she should have been with me to choose it! And then I did the same thing again — I bought a wedding ring without DorothyAnne there to choose it!
We approached the Minister of the Methodist Church in Amanzimtoti to ask him to marry us. He refused saying he did not know us, we were not members of his congregation, and we should talk to a priest of the Anglican Church, the denomination to which DorothyAnne belonged. We didn’t do that (I had no interest in a Christian ceremony) but I asked at the Magistrates Court in Durban. They would do it but they required to see us both together beforehand which was difficult because DorothyAnne was working out of the town centre and could not get to the Court during office hours (she had quit her teaching post at the end the year and started a job as a Laboratory Technician at a factory in Mobeni). The Durban Magistrate’s Court also did not open on Saturdays.
We made a new decision — we would ride up on Saturday to New Hanover where my Dad lived to see if the Magistrate’s Court there was open on a Saturday and if they could do it for us. We got up early and rode up to New Hanover, calling at the Magistrate’s Court as soon as they opened. Yes, the Magistrate said, he would do it, but could we come back at 11 o’clock to give him time to prepare for the wedding? We paid for the Special Licence which was required in lieu of the reading of banns, and went to Dad’s place to wait. We told Dad we were going to get married and asked him if he would like to come to the ceremony. Quite typically, Dad said, “No — I don’t think so, my boy”. We were not surprised or hurt by it, it was just who he was. We had phoned Boet in Greytown and he and his girlfriend Deon (Gwen’s sister) were coming through to act as witnesses. They duly arrived at the Courthouse on Boet’s motorbike and we on ours and the four of us went into the Magistrate’s office where he exacted from DorothyAnne and me the required legal affirmations and pronounced us husband and wife. When it came to the point where we signed the Register and our signatures had to be witnessed, it turned out that Deon could not sign because she was not yet 18, so a clerk in the office was called upon to be the second witness. The ceremony over, the four of us went down to the New Hanover Hotel for a drink or two, and such was our Reception!
DorothyAnne and I slept that night at Dad’s house and the following morning we departed for Pietermaritzburg to watch motor racing at the Roy Hesketh Circuit, and then home to Doonside. The next morning back at the laboratory DorothyAnne’s boss asked, “What did you do this weekend?” DorothyAnne replied, “I got married!” and he responded, “What is your name now?” DorothyAnne said “Sutton”. He quickly responded, “That was sutton!” That was our very different and very romantic wedding. Some friends ask, “Didn’t you have a proper Church ceremony afterwards?” And we say, “No — that was our day and we loved it!” Still do.
While living at Doonside, I would drop DorothyAnne off at the factory in Mobeni in the morning and pick her up again in the afternoon, which made for some memorable times! Anyone who has lived in Durban will be familiar with the five o’clock thunder storms. We got caught in those regularly on the motorbike and when we stopped at the corner grocer in Amanzimtoti to buy something for supper, we looked like two drowned rats much to the amusement of the shopkeeper. We had no rain-proof togs for protection on the bike.
A couple of months into 1957 we left Gwen and the garage apartment and set up our home in a flat in Durban at Torbeth Lodge, Riley Road, Overport. It was a small bachelor flat, with an enclosed balcony, which we furnished initially with a single bed to serve both as settee and spare bed, a three-quarter bed and a wardrobe, two lounge chairs, a kitchen table with a green formica top and chromed legs, two chairs to match the table, and a table-top stove.
We were king and queen, queen and king, in our own castle!
