Valentine’s Day

In June this year it will be 40 years since I married a kind, gentle man who turned abusive immediately after our honeymoon. 2 days after my wedding anniversary will be my 37th divorce anniversary. I don’t do romance as I didn’t want to have another relationship while raising my children and now I don’t want to have to arrange my life around another person. So almost all of my 62 years Valentine’s Day has just been a day.

Enter in the most romantic gesture I’ve ever seen.

Looking at this black and white photo from 1945 you can see a soldier who has removed jacket and shirt and is leaning against an Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) after placing the clothing on the front.

He’s a handsome man. A father of 3 girls (my mum and 2 aunts).

This is a love note to his wife Dorothy (who died before my parents married).

You can’t see it?

I’ve zoomed in on the relevant details in the photo above.

The words Kentish Town (a borough in London) are stencilled in white paint upon the APC. Directly above Granddad Alf (who died a year before I was born) has written in chalk 22 Kelly St, and to the left Dorthy (okay so spelling wasn’t his strong suit *wink*).

My grandparents started their married life at this address. They possibly didn’t rent the whole house.

In the screenshot from Google Streetview above we can see 22 Kelly Street is a mid terrace narrow house probably 2 bedrooms and bathroom upstairs, and a living room and kitchen downstairs, but at the time they married it wasn’t unusual for newlyweds to rent a room in a house.

With its 1 window in the centre of the upstairs (probably the biggest bedroom across the width of the house), and its window to the left (probably the living room) and purple front door to the right (probably a small hall with door to living room to the left and stairs straight ahead). The render is pale lilac. There was probably no bathroom/ indoor loo back then.

I’ve based these probabilities on looking at the floor plans of a couple similar properties currently for sale on the street (for £1,165,000) which have been extended and in both cases the bathroom is in the upstairs extension and kitchen in the downstairs extension and the 2 original rooms downstairs have been knocked through to make an open plan large reception room.

The houses originally had a large gardens (by London standards) but sacrificed about half to the extension turning them into long narrow courtyards.

Anyway back to Alf and Dorothy whether they were sharing or it was just them in their home it’s obvious that though they lived in Dagenham in Essex at the time Alf had tender memories of the beginning of their marriage and their first home.