MyFamily: My Parents' Wedding

A tidy up of the garage turned up a whole load of family history that I inherited when my mother died five years ago. I had no time to do it then, but this time around I thought I would make the effort to sort it all out, and establish some kind of family history. I am going to start with my parents' wedding (and thanks to my sister for help identifying some people).

They used a photographer called Theodore Grenville, and all the photos on this page are by him.

The wedding was a Christchurch, Chorleywood. You can see the lychgate in the background of most photos. My father went there as a boy when evacuated in the war; my mother was local and went there from early childhood. They would go on to be very active in the church, both serving on the PCC at different times.

John Warren, on the left above, was the best man, and long time family friend. When my mother died, he was the oldest member of the church, she was the second. On the right is my aunt, Anne, who seems to be the only bridesmaid, and beside her, the father of the bride, Bernard.

The two mothers, Edna, the maternal mother on the left, Dora, on the right. My father's father had become estranged by this time, and unknown to him, had remarried and had a daughter.

These people warranted a photo. The guy in the middle is clearly a member of the clergy; the vicar who did the service? Rev John Gilliat confirmed them both. The lady on the left might be "Auntie at Bourne End", while the couple on the left might be Arnold and Eileen Selby?

The lady in the photo is Heather; my mother was at school with her at St Joan of Ark, I think her husband died quite young. She lived in Northwood, and I remember going to visit occasionally, and playing with the children, though they would be a few years old than me.

Everyone lined up. The woman in the wheelchair on the left is my mother's cousin Monica, with her mother Evelyn, just left of her, while her father, Maurice, my grandmother's brother, three in from the far right. Evelyn's sister, Margery, could be the woman to Maurice's right.

Third and fourth from the left may be Arnold and Eileen Selby again. The woman twelth from the left, in a halo-like hat is Pat Beeston, a friend from when Mother worked at the British Baking Industries Research Association, which was just across the road from the church. The woman looking over Mother's should is Corrine, her friend from sixth form.