Where I met my wife
The venue where I met my wife has to be on my list of favourite places. In the mid 1980s, after returning to Brighton from London, I was working in electronic research and development, but wanted to become more active physically and socially. So I took up badminton via an evening class before joining St Cuthbert’s, a club which, confusingly, played in St Augustine’s Church Hall.
Just a name on the board
‘Judith’ was on the name-peg board, but it was months before she first turned up. Then, in the spring of 1988, we were paired together for a league match. I asked her out for a drink, and she said yes. I told her I was always punctual (a sad distortion of the truth) and that I was “quite interested” in the Albion (a severe case of understatement). Despite that, we got on well and eventually married.
Alike and different
We share many interests. We run, cycle and orienteer together. We’ve climbed 239 of 283 Scottish Munros together. We watch birds and nature together, and we travel to new places together. But we also have our own interests which keep us individual and give us breathing space: Judith has cross-country running and growing fruit and veg; I have my football and especially the Albion.
22 happy years
Happily, my wife is also my best friend and my soul-mate, although I don’t tell her often enough what she means to me. A quirk of fate introduced us 22 years ago, but the bonds that keep us together are as powerful as ever.
Comments about this page
What wonderful memories you have of this building! I was interested to read in the Stanford Road School centenary booklet that when the school was used as a military hospital in the First World War the boys moved to St Augustine’s Church Hall. I’ll be sure to look at this page regularly to see what other stories this now-derelict building could tell.
During the 1939-45 war, St Augustine’s church Hall and a scout hall at the rear were used extensively by Canadian troops billited in the private houses in Florence Road and they were a great bunch, sadly a lot of them were lost on a raid on Dieppe. They were members of the Calgary Highlanders Regiment and I remember that they had a party for the local kids at Christmas with really great food; a treat in the hard days of rationing
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