Couples across Bristol will be marking Valentine’s Day tomorrow with expressions of ever-lasting love - but none will have the receipts to prove it like Doreen and Brian Lealan.
For this year’s February 14th will mark their 70th wedding anniversary, which will be celebrated surrounded by family.
The couple were married at Holy Trinity Church in Kingswood on the afternoon of Valentine’s Day back in 1953 - although they never originally intended to have such an auspicious anniversary date.
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And the wedding itself, which had already been postponed by a week, was very nearly the wrong kind of white wedding - a huge blizzard on the morning of February 14, 70 years ago, meant there were fears it wouldn’t happen at all.
The couple had initially booked Holy Trinity church for the wedding to take place the Saturday before, on February 7. But there was a problem as the big day approached. Just before Christmas, Brian had been called up for his National Service so the young couple booked their wedding for his first weekend on leave, at the start of February.
But Brian caught pneumonia within a couple of weeks of being sent to Aldershot for his training, and was still in the military hospital as the February 7 date approached. So instead of getting married, the 18-year-old Doreen found herself have to go with her parents into the Diocese of Bristol headquarters and ask for special dispensation from the Bishop of Bristol to be allowed to change the date and all the paperwork at such short notice.
It was a close-run thing, but Brian, then 21, recovered and was discharged from hospital just in time and was able to get the leave from the army he required to return to Bristol to marry his sweetheart.
But then there was another hitch. Doreen always dreamed of a white wedding, but not this kind. She looked out of the window in horror as she got ready at her parents home in St George that morning. “It was really frosty the night before and when I woke up the next morning it was absolutely chucking it down with snow,” Doreen said.
“I thought ‘oh no, it’s going to have to be called off again! Everywhere and everyone will be snowed in'. But thankfully the snowstorm passed, it stopped snowing and by the time we set off they had cleared the roads of the snow and it was ok. My husband-to-be lived almost right opposite the church in Kingswood, so he wasn’t worried anyway,” she added.
The wedding went swimmingly, amid some lovely picture-postcard snowy scenes, but like so many couples in those days, they weren’t really able to start married life properly for another couple of years. Soon after the wedding, Brian had to return to the army and Doreen returned to live at her parents home in St George just as before.
“I was working, and obviously Brian was paid for his National Service so we were able to save up and look for a house. There was still rationing then, we were all still coming out of the war, really, but it gave us the chance to save up and get our own home,” she added.
Brian and Doreen had met a couple of years before at a works’ dance. They both worked for William Butlers, the huge Bristol chemical and industrial company - Doreen a teenager in the head office at Netham, with Brian up river at the Crew's Hole site.
She carried on working after she was married, and moved to a firm in Old Market for a few months, but then in 1954 the first of three baby girls came along.
The couple now live in Coalpit Heath and, at 91 and 88 are still very much in love. They have three daughters, seven grandchildren - one of whom married an American and lives near Portland in Oregon - and six great-grandchildren.
“It’s lovely because almost all of the family live close by, so we’re a close bunch,” said Doreen, who volunteered for more than 40 years in a local primary school and went back to work as a doctors’ receptionist.
This will be the 70th time they’ve celebrated their wedding anniversary on Valentine’s Day and, like having a birthday on Christmas Day, it’s a bit of a mixed blessing. On the one hand, Brian has never forgotten the anniversary date, but on the other hand… “It was always a bit of a pain trying to book a nice meal out to celebrate, because everyone else was as well,” laughed Doreen. “I’d always have to try to remember to book a table or to do something for our wedding anniversary early, like in January, or everywhere would be booked up.”
“I wouldn’t know the answer if someone asked what’s the secret of being married 70 years. We’ve had our arguments the same as everyone, and it’s hard bringing up children, but if you have a row you’ve got to make up, there’s no point holding grudges for too long. I think as you get older you get more tolerant, and it’s lovely to get to 70 years,” she added.
The big day has already been marked by the King. The couple have received the official congratulations card from King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla in the run-up to tomorrow's anniversary. Back in 1953, the couple were married at a time between the death of the monarch - King George VI - and the coronation of the next - Queen Elizabeth II. Coincidentally, this year's anniversary falls with the same scenario, before the King's Coronation later this year.
