O & G's Diamond Wedding Anniversary

This is the article about O and G which was in the Watford Observer a couple of weeks ago:

Diamond couple put marriage down to dominoes

A diamond couple have put their long and happy marriage down to a daily hand of cards and game of dominoes.

Fred Hawkins met his future bride Elly when the pair worked at the Oxhey Grange mansion.

Elly, who was born in Switzerland and raised in Austria, came to England in 1938 to learn English.

After being picked up at the train station in a chauffeur driven Rolls Royce, Elly was taken to the house, where she met a young son of a building labourer from Pretoria Road, who worked in the gardens.

Elly, now 89, said: “I came to learn English so I came to a family in Oxhey Grange and Fred worked there. I worked in the kitchen and around the house and he was a gardener.

“So that's where we met.”

In 1939, when World War 2 was declared, Elly found herself marooned from her family in Austria.

She said: “There were four girls who worked in the house, but the three other girls were Welsh so they went back to Wales.

“But in 1940 Oxhey was declared a restricted area for all foreigners so I got another job working for a family in Hempstead Road.”

At the age of 19, meanwhile, Fred signed up to the newly formed Local Defence Volunteers, who were more commonly known, later on, as the Home Guard.

After hearing about the newly formed LDV the night before, Fred and his pal made their way to King Street at 7am the next morning, where they signed up inside Meredith's Wood Yard.

Five months later Fred was conscripted into the army and found himself stationed near Dover, where he helped make guns.

In 1945, Elly returned to Switzerland and then Austria, having had no contact with her family and unaware if they were alive or dead.

Happily, Elly managed to find her family in Austria and shared letters with Fred until she returned to England in 1949.

Fred, also 89, added: “I went over once to see her and we talked things over through letters and we agreed to get married so she came back over.”

The pair were then married on August 1, 1949, in Holyrood Church, in Watford, and celebrated their marriage with a reception at the Windsor Club, in Loates Lane.

Sixty years on, Elly and Fred - who now have two children, five grandchildren and seven great grandchildren – will celebrate their golden wedding anniversary on Saturday with a family meal.

Asked what is the success to their marriage, the pair, who live in Bushey, say they share one hobby.

Elly said: “We play dominoes every morning after breakfast and then in the afternoon we play cards.

“We play for money.

“We play five games of dominoes for 5p a game. The money then goes in a jar and then when we want to go out for a meal the money comes out of there.

“We also play ten games of cards for a penny a game and every game goes to a mission in Africa.”

We had a truly lovely celebration on the Saturday of their anniversary ~ O and G enjoyed it tremendously!!

Firstly we went to mass at Holy Rood ~ the church in Watford where they married, where many of us were baptised, confirmed and made First Holy Communion . . . and in Stella and Richard's and Cat and David's and Frankie and Alex's case married too. That was beautiful and O and G also received a Papal Blessing which J had organised. Oh yes ~ and they had had a card from the Queen arrive the day before!

While we were waiting for mass: Jpie and Cpie:


Kpie ~ and of course Budin came too!



Then we zipped off up to Il Pappatore in Bushey ~ one of my most fave-of-all-time restaurants for a family meal.

In the restaurant: Em, Eric, O ~ and G just trying to get out of shot!








Lizzie and Janey








The children had their own table-for-four. When he had finished his first glass of orange, Jpie ordered another round for himself and 'the gels' ~ taking the 'man's' role already . . . and he's only five! here they are: Lpip, Jpie, Cpie (back of her head) and Kpie)


And then back to mine for tea and caake ~ and Kpie entertaining us with a tuneful medley on her violin.



Here they are about to cut the caake.












A lovely day ~ we were all so happy to see them enjoying themselves so much! they deserve it!





coming soon . . . . The Calke Abbey Concert Week-end . . . .