My wife Mary. We have been married for 40 years now. On the 20th December 1969. She was born on 7th February 1948, making her an Aquarian if you care.
She was bought up by foster parents from a baby, by Will and May Davies. Will sadly died over 30 years ago of cancer. A real gentleman in the best sense of the word. May is had her ninety fifth birthday in April, and is still lively. A lovely lady, and the best Mum-in-law I could have had.
Once again, I will skip the early years, but Mary went into the nursing profession after school, stayed for a few years, then moved on. She tried to be a live in helper for a while. I can remember it now. The child was lovely, but the two brothers were brats, and the boss was a bitch. So off she went.
Before we got married she joined Cardiff Bus as a "clippie" as the female conductors were called in those days. About six months before we got married, she fell down the stairs, and broke her ankle. She only got out of plaster a few days before the ceremony!
In the early years of our marriage, she organized trips, ran a bingo every week in the local community centre, and worked with a local play group. Unfortunately, these days her health has suffered badly, and she has had to give it all up.
She suffers from Arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, and has to use a wheelchair when we go out. Due to her illnesses, she gets a allowance from the government, that she uses to get a car from a charity called motabilty. This allows us to change the car every three years for a new model, and is a lifeline to get out and about. If you would like more information, click on
http://www.motability.co.uk This is the site address for this organization, and will give you all the information you can need.
So that is my Mary. We still like travel, as other pages will show, and will carry on as much as our health and pocket will allow.
Right at the moment of writing this site, she is in hospital after breaking a bone in her knee. This is the second time she has broken a bone in this leg in two years, and we are now waiting on the physiotherapists to sort her out so she can get home.
Sadly I must write that today July 20th 2010 my Mary passed away after a short illness in hospital.
Mary as we all know had a huge amount of medical problem in the last years. The last two especially were very bad. Well that is all that I am going to mention on that. I want to remember the other Mary.
I want to remember the Mary that was quite frankly a force of nature. (A hurricane at times!)
The Mary that was involved in the children’s play group when we moved here and Mark was little.
The Mary that started off the bingo sessions in the community centre and got me driving around looking for prizes until we could get cash bingo going a while later.
The Mary that organized day trips and weeks away to the holiday camps and had a great time doing it.
The Mary that joined a skittle team and eventually became Captain. She loved her skittles and was really sad when her arthritis forced her to stop.
The Mary that got involved in the local carnivals and used the lorry I was driving at the time to build floats on for it. She got Memory Lane cakes involved one year and we all had a fair share of cake that year!
We have had some great holidays even when she was in a wheelchair and have been to Canada and Florida and many parts of Europe.
That is the Mary that I will remember, and now she has got the peace in death that she had not got in life.