Alan loved telling the story of how his honeymoon got off to the worst possible starts. It would generally go something like this and always told with a big grin on his face...

...We were heading for Cornwall for our honeymoon. I was driving an Austin A35 van at the time - not a particularly glamorous vehicle for someone with such high standards as your mother. Anyway, we had only got a few miles out of Dudley when a horrible rattling sound could be heard from the car. It got worse and worse and I eventually had to say to mum "I'm sorry darling, but this is as far as we're going to go". And so our honeymoon trip ended in disaster parked on the hard shouder of a busy dual carriageway, waiting for a recovery vehicle to pick us up.

As soon as news got out that it was the big end that had gone on the car you can imagine how much teasing I got from my friends about me blowing my big end before I had even got to the hotel".

You'll be glad to hear that Alan and Eileen did eventually get to Cornwall on their honeymoon - just several days later than planned after they were kindly lent another, more reliable, vehicle from a generous friend in the family.