James drew up plans for an extension here - a downstairs bathroom, w.c. and extra bedroom, but it turned out to be very expensive. I did, however get Planning and Building Permission which are easily renewable and will prove to be a good selling asset. It would have been similar to what David Desborough has done, opposite.

In the event we got the Stairlift which has proved a boon. It saved a lot of money and enabled us to stay here among people we have known for many years, with easy access to shops. Church, etc.

We knew when I retired that we might not have much longer together. Marjorie always said that the next heart attack would be her last - she had already had five, and been in Intensive Care three times. She didn't want to become a 'crumbly' of the 'Blue Rinse Brigade'. Just being 'wrinklies' was enough, although neither of us was showing signs of age. It only showed on Marjorie when she was having an Angina and sometimes I didn't know if she had had one. She looked as young and lovely as ever, and people who didn't know her couldn't believe she had problems. She got tired very easily.

Her daily tablets thinned her blood and she had to be kept warm, so we decided to travel a bit and find the sun whenever we could. I looked for flat places, and hotels had to have a lift and some luxury, we found places like this in towns like Tiverton, Yarmouth, Bournemouth, Llandudno, and in overseas places like Tenerife, Majorca, Brittany, Amsterdam etc. We went to Spanish classes meeting new people. After I retired she didn't have to worry any more in winter and bad weather when I would be driving to work or around East Anglia in fog or snow. I tried to play cricket as often as possible, but only made myself available for home games at the Club or Bennett's Rec., where I could get home early after the match, or be reached easily in the event of an emergency.

Visitors were always welcome, and many morning coffee or afternoon tea sessions with ladies from the Church or other friends were enjoyed by us both. She loved the conversations on these occasions, but was sometimes left absolutely drained, and I sometimes felt that they were not good for her. But it was what she liked.

Unfortunately I am not a social conversationalist, although a good listener. At work I was talking all day long - telephones, meetings, lectures, presentations and the like. That was easy, part of the job. After several hours of this every day it was no wonder that when I came home I would sit down and relapse into silence. She would sometimes say "Talk to me, say something" but I found it difficult - I was often thinking of work the following day. I think this happens quite a lot with husbands who have a responsible job.

I wish now that I had been able to talk to her more often so I try to make up by talking to her photographs or her headstone. It isn't the same. I know that she can hear me, but I can't get any answers until we are together again, and I realise how she must have felt.

Our last overseas holiday was in Minorca which sounded quiet and had not yet been infested by Lager Louts. The day we set out happened to be the start of a hurricane in Western Europe which affected all air travel, and the waiting about was stressful for her. She had three Anginas that day, but the following two weeks presented no problems until the day we came back.

There had been more air travel problems caused by bad weather in England and the Mediterranean, and our hotel had become a dormitory for people who couldn't get away. Mahon Airport was crowded and we had a four hour wait there in the heat. Some people were outside on the tarmac. Marjorie had four Anginas that day, and we both said "no more foreign travel." So all through 1988 we pottered about in England, went up to Colwyn Bay and to Selkirk on the trip down Memory Lane I wrote about earlier. For a long time Marjorie seemed O.K. and was without Anginas. She was having difficulty keeping her weight down and was eating like a bird. I was eating the same, and losing weight!

She decided to stop driving - which she loved - because we were continually hearing about traffic accidents caused by heart failures.

Round about October she began to have an Angina attack almost every day, and after Christmas they increased to three or four, sometimes even in the night when she was at rest. It got so bad that I called the Doctor and he arranged for her to go into hospital for observation. For about three days she had no problems at all and was very cheerful and chatting to everyone else in the ward, taking on their problems. One night Hilary brought her camera along and the photograph shows Marjorie sitting up, looking very healthy and happy.

I went to see her the following afternoon, 18th January 1989 and Hilary went along in the evening. She was alright. At 11.30 I was in bed watching a football match on the television when the phone rang. It was too late. By the time I got there she had died.

The last heart attack. They said it was very quick, that she had felt no pain. How could they know that? Only an hour or so before she had got out of bed to comfort a mongoloid teenage girl in the bed opposite who did not know what was happening to her. How like her to think of others when she herself was so ill. I know the Staff Nurse, Pam Hill, who was at Spanish classes with us both, and she said to me a few weeks afterwards that it was a great surprise to her when Marjorie died, because she had seemed so well, all things considered.

All the family and many of our friends - old and new - and our neighbours came to the funeral at St Mary's. She is buried in Plot V 199 in Dunstable Cemetery and there is an inscription in the Book of Remembrance for the day she died. It carries the same words as on her Headstone - 'La Penserosa' and 'Not lost but gone before'. A Liverpool photographer had given her that name many years before, and it is written on the photograph which I have had over forty years. It means 'the thoughtful one', which is exactly what she was, always thinking of others, doing things for them at the drop of a hat, never putting herself first.

There is space in the grave and on the headstone for me when my time comes. Within a few days I shall have reached my allotted 'three score and ten". I go up to her grave almost every day and on the way I pass many headstones where the surviving partner has gone on for another ten or even twenty years or so. I really don't want that to happen to me, but my family have been long-livers, many of them going on past eighty. In the meantime I have plenty to keep myself occupied. My hobby of photographing war Memorials will get me out and about to many places I would not otherwise visit, particularly the small towns and villages off the beaten track, and even abroad. The work at the Cricket Club will keep me busy and hopefully healthy, and I might even get a few games if they will let me.

I intend to get out and about and not to brood, which is unhealthy, but that is going to be the most difficult part of life on my own. There is so much in the house which brings back memories of her, pictures, pottery, the Lover's Knot she made for me in Felixstowe on one of the I.G.E. events. I know it isn't going to be easy. There will never be anyone else for me like my lovely Marjorie.