Who's The Daddy: Engaged in a flash, married for life, cheers to The Boss
Aaahhhhhhhhh, the long hot summer of 1995, back when the news wasn’t a living nightmare and the biggest story of the year was Oasis v Blur for the coveted No.1 single - or at least it was in my head.
Something else momentous also happened that summer. On Saturday July 22 me and The Boss went on our first date - to the Golden Dragon in Lancaster - and in all that time she still hasn’t managed to shake me off.
Back then, just like now really, we didn’t mess about. Met up in 1995, moved in together in 1996, bought a house in 1997, got married in 1998, had Daughter #1 in 1999, paused for breath in 2000 and 2001, and had Daughter #2 in 2002. A busy old time, as I’m sure you’ll agree.
Back in July 1995, life was one long Pulp lyric. I did indeed rent a flat above a shop (Silver Tree in Lancaster’s Penny Street), cut my hair and got a job (sub-editor at Lancaster & Morecambe Newspapers) and smoked some fags and played some pool, generally having the absolute time of our lives. Nothing mattered, everything was cheap, life was starting to open up and we grabbed it with both hands.
Looking back at photographs taken at the time, were we really ever that young and fresh-faced - while at the same time being only a few months away from being actual grown-ups doing actual grown-up things? Yes we were, even though 1997 was the last time I saw the inside of a nightclub, after spending just about every weekend in them for the previous 10 years.
Little did she know at the time, but The Boss had married a professional idiot. OK on his day at journalism and successful at substituting an encyclopaedic knowledge of Manchester United and indie music for a personality.
I was asked a while ago where I’d be if I hadn’t met The Boss, and without a hint of hyperbole I said I’d be dead - probably around 2009, weighing 20st and with a debt that would put a government to shame. But 30 years later, here we are. We were only engaged for five months before we got married. Everyone assumed, wrongly, that The Boss was up the duff. It’s just that once we make a decision we act on it pretty quick.
The only fly in the ointment was a prolapsed disc (mine) a month before the wedding, a trend of serious injury and illness on the eve of major events that’s plagued me my entire adult life.
In no particular order… smashed and dislocated elbow and wrist a couple of weeks before a multi-family holiday in a Mallorcan villa, torn back ligaments the day of Daughter #2’s one-woman show in Liverpool, brain stem infection that manifested itself on a cross-trainer at a busy gym (absolutely terrifying, would not recommend), Covid three Christmases out of four and most recently a lung infection the day before a festive family trip to Hamburg.
So, here’s to The Boss. A remarkable woman who raised two kids to adulthood (seriously, I watched and helped) while holding down a job as a teacher and babysitting a feral lunatic and keeping him out of harm’s way. It’s been a blast, and here’s to a few more years yet.
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