The priest looked me in the eye: “Do you, insert name, take…”
“Hold on, Father,” I interrupted, “I think that means you have to say the name of the person.”
Well, it was his first wedding ceremony, after all, and he was nervous, especially as it was in a cathedral.
My soon-to-be father-in-law worried about how much this was going to cost him, as the priest continued: “Right; do you, Francis Anthony Gilfeather take Sharron O’Fee to be…?”
There was a pause, a long pause, until the words “I do” came. “That was clever,” I thought, “I didn’t say anything.”
Later, I discovered that in the weeks leading up to the big day, my wife had been taking lessons from a local ventriloquist. Just in case.
And so, on September 25 1971, when a 25-inch HMV Colourmaster TV cost £289 (around £3,000 in today’s money) and a gallon of petrol would set you back 34p, we tied the knot.
Who’s sorry now?
It was a gloriously balmy day as autumn began to beckon. We posed for pictures outside St Andrew’s Cathedral in Dundee and were relieved that two friends and their wives – “partners” hadn’t been invented then – just made it for the “I do” part of the ceremony.
They’d been directed to another St Andrew’s Church where there was, indeed, a wedding taking place, and had sat there for several minutes debating whether the back of the groom’s head was mine or somebody else’s before realising their mistake.
It was the year of Dirty Harry and Diamonds Are Forever, of Vesta beef curry with rice (for two) at 20p – that’s two quid today – and of hot pants and Joe Harper.
The wedding reception venue, the Castle Hotel in Broughty Ferry, now an old folk’s home, was bouncing as guests danced to a local combo, my granny sang Tears for Souvenirs and I did my party piece, Who’s Sorry Now?, which brought a glower from my new mother-in-law. She considered my choice of song inappropriate.
The most loved woman in the world
Then, we left in a Mitchell’s self-drive Ford Cortina and a first honeymoon night in the swish George Hotel in Edinburgh where, in the breakfast room the following morning, sat the actor Andrew Cruickshank, best known as Dr Cameron in the TV series Dr Finlay’s Casebook.
“I’m going to make you the most loved woman in the world.” The voice, not Andrew’s, was clear. My new bride munched her full Scottish. “Wow,” I thought, “that ventriloquist taught her well.”
We look forward to Saturday’s half-century celebration lunch.
Note to readers: Not everything you’ve just read is necessarily true.