Mills&Boon plot summary

I grew up in a household caught in a time warp.

In an era when Jean Shrimpton was scandalizing Melbourne society by displaying her knees at The Cup (to say nothing of the horror of her going bare headed), Carnaby Street was exploding with colour and anybody who was anyone was wearing the shift dress, our family was just a tad behind the times. My mother was still getting her money's worth out of her Dior "new look" patterns. My Dad insisted that the tweed sports jacket he bought with his demob pay would never go out of style and jeans were working man's clothes. My sister and I owned going-to-town hats and matching gloves and gabardine coats. Our underwear was voluminous and white (only trollops wore colour under their clothes), our hair was long and braided and we always, always wore a singlet.

One of the joyous memories of that time (and I have few memories at all) was the visits of Mum's brother, my a favourite uncle. (He was actually the only uncle with whom we had much contact. The others were on Dad's side and were Christmas card relatives.)

Uncle Alan was an extremely handsome and charismatic man. And he knew it. Indulged by his parents, well educated at private school and in a high paid job, he was very different from the usual academic frusties Dad invited home.

Uncle Alan blew in and out of our stodgy engineer's household like a tornado of fresh air (and hope).

Arriving at erratic intervals, he never came alone. About half the time he brought along his friend, Maurice (was Maurice a special friend?) and the rest of the time he was accompanied by a succession of ladies. Pretty ladies. To my childish eyes, exotic pretty ladies.

They wore mini-skirts and blue eyeshadow and red nail polish. They carried handbags stuffed with foreign treasures such as chewing gum and make-up purses and teasing combs. They curled their hair, never wore gloves and smelled of perfume other than Ashes of Violets or 4711.

They had modern and abbreviated names like Barb and Jenny and Kitty and they distributed forbidden largess (Freddo Frogs and Stimerol) and painted our toenails. They had jobs like Personal Assistant, model or pharmacy girl.

All very exotic stuff to a kid in Cottontails and a tartan pinafore.

Occasionally, we saw them more than once. Even more rarely, they came a number of times. A privileged couple hung around for many months and sported a diamond ring. One of those was a lady called Margie and the other was my uncle's eventual wife.

Uncle Alan drifted in and out of our lives until I left home. The marriage ended (but not the friendship with Maurice). There were more pretty ladies and long periods of no contact. Until my last visit to Melbourne, I had not seen him for 30 years and knew, only vaguely, about his doings.

Yesterday Mum had a letter from him. He is getting married. He's 79.

And here is the twist in the tale.

He is marrying Margie. One of those pretty ladies. The first wearer of the diamond ring. Nearly 50 years after he first proposed (and three marriages between them later), he is marrying his first real love.

Maurice is to be best man.

Now, tell me that isn't worthy of a Mills&Boon!

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The lord and master (in his own mind, if nowhere else) is away at the moment. Three nights of just Mum for company. It has been surprisingly easy.

She is slowly getting used to living in our organised chaos and I am slowly getting used to her desire for neatness and routine. Compromise is happening all round.

Not much other news so I will put in a cutesy grandchild pic...

and, one of the lovebirds....