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What a difference a lifetime makes.

When Leslie Harper and Elsie Dunn married in Hull, northern England, in 1941, World War II was raging and hope for a better future was one of the few luxuries they had.

They didn’t get it. The war ended, but it seemed to have taken romance with it. They had a daughter, Pauline, but the relationship struggled. Elsie said the war had changed Leslie. Things got increasingly hostile, and they divorced in 1954.

So bitter was the separation that Elsie burned her wedding photos and vowed that she never wanted to see Leslie, or have any contact, again.

Leslie and Elsie both married again in the 1960s, and both marriages lasted a long time. Elsie’s second husband died in 2002; Leslie’s second wife died in 2004.

Alone again, Leslie looked back over his life, including the photos from his first wedding which he had always kept. He had kept everything that reminded him of Elsie. Leslie felt there was something he had to do.

Elsie had so thoroughly cut him off all those years ago that he didn’t have any contact details for her. But their daughter, Pauline, now 65, did. Leslie asked Pauline for a phone number.

Leslie, now 93, rang Elsie, now 90, and they agreed to meet. They got on, Elsie said, like they had never been apart. It was the old Leslie, the lad she had met and loved before the war changed him. They laughed again. They rediscovered the romance. They loved again.

So they got married again.

Pauline gave her mother away, to her father. “Everybody was really happy for them,” said Pauline. “They're meant to be together.”
mirror.co.uk

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: 90s, Relationships, Romance

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Putting our yesterdays into perspective

December 10th 2010 08:03

I overheard a conversation this week in which a grandparent lamented the lack of motivation for today's young people to have multiple interests. The technological age, she believed, had created an enormous cultural change in our society, gluing young people to computer screens. As a result, they were less healthy and less engaged with the world around them.

This week I also attended a ballet school graduation ceremony. Before the ceremony we - the parents, friends and ballet stars of tomorrow - gathered in a foyer outside the auditorium, where we were entertained by some jazz music performed, on saxophone and piano, by two of the ballet students. The jazz piece they played and been composed by a third ballet student.

Today I saw a newspaper feature story about a Swedish indie rock group named Shout Out Louds. These five young men have released critically acclaimed albums, toured internationally and enjoyed considerable commercial success. Yet they regularly take time out from music to work in other areas: graphic design, pastry cooking, shoemaking and film-making were mentioned in the story.

Not everyone can be multi-talented, but I’m sure there are many more grounded and engaged young people than is generally supposed.

The youth of today, like many other cross-sections of society, can fall victim to media organisations which learnt long ago that news about norms and majority behaviour doesn’t sell.

In the case of young people, however, they are also victims of something else: an age-old, subjective attitude by their elders. I don't believe the youth of today are any more indolent than the youth of any other generation. But that doesn’t stop their parents, like their own parents before them, being critical.

Why do we have such trouble keeping our yesterdays in perspective?

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Psychology, Relationships

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Creating habits

October 16th 2010 11:09

I read this week that if you conscientiously do something you don't ordinarily do - and don't want to do - 30 times or more, it will become a habit.

What this suggests is that things we are bad at doing, such as perhaps paying bills on time, can be changed to natural inclinations by sufficient repetition to make them second nature. It is an interesting theory and I wouldn't be surprised if it were true for most people.

It is not true for me, of course. I am psychologically and constitutionally incapable of paying bills on time. I'm not saying I have tested the theory via 30 consecutive timely responses to demands for money, I'm saying I don't believe it could ever become a habit for me.

It wouldn't be a problem for my wife. In fact, nothing's a problem for my wife. She's one of those people who, every time they see something which needs to be done, do it. Immediately.

My wife's idea of a relaxing Saturday morning is planning what she is going to do for the rest of the weekend. That's fine - I often do the same thing. Where we diverge is that my wife actually does all those things. Come late Sunday, when I'm often still in bed dreaming of what I might do with the rest of the evening, my wife's To Do list is nothing but a long row of crossed-off items.

It can be, let me tell you, quite tiring to watch.

This has led to occasional conflict in one or two areas where she has strong beliefs, such as turning off lights when leaving a room. This proved, in the early days of our cohabitation, to be at philosophical and procedural odds with my own practices.

However, I love my wife dearly and I tried to bridge this gap, especially when she was around. The best example is when I serve dinner at night. I cook regularly, and I enjoy seating my wife at the table and bringing the food with just a little waiterly ceremony.

The first few times I did this, my wife smiled and cooed and made other appreciative noises, and then left the table to go to the kitchen to turn off the kitchen light, the pantry light and the oven hood light. This spoiled the sense of culinary occasion, so I took to doing it myself.

When I remembered.

I remembered tonight. Having placed the food on the table, I marched straight back to the kitchen and turned off the lights, and checked the microwave door was closed and all the gas rings were off.

This was odd because I ate alone tonight, my wife being interstate for the weekend visiting her family. I had a little chuckle to myself. It's almost as if, simply because I have done it a few times, it has become a habit.

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Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Changes, Psychology, Relationships

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