One of Hannah Wight’s objections to her only son’s choice of future wife was that she did not come from a good enough family. Hannah, through her successful dressmaking business, had been mixing in some highly influential social circles. She had made elaborate dresses for several society weddings, and the thought of her only son marrying someone with very little money was too much to bear. Even worse, Alf told her that he and Joan were planning to be married quietly and unceremoniously, thus denying her the prospect of participating in a grand white wedding – one for which she certainly would have expected to have been asked to provide the dresses. She was not in any way rude to Joan during the visit, but her intense disappointment was something she could not fully hide.

Joan was certainly not frozen out by the rest of Alf’s family; they both received enormous support from the relations in Sunderland. Both his uncles, Bob and Matt, after meeting her for the first time, were quick to pass their vote of approval back to Hannah. Uncle Stan and Auntie Jinny felt similarly, as did Alf’s cousin, Nan. During this difficult time, these warm gestures of friendship and acceptance from Alf’s relatives would never be forgotten by Joan. She made many lasting friendships with those open and friendly people of Sunderland.

Hannah, however, continued to voice her disapproval right up until the wedding day in November. Alf’s feelings are adequately revealed in a letter written only three days before the wedding:

My dear Mother and Dad,

It was nice to hear your voices the other night and it alleviated to a certain extent the black misery which has been periodically descending on me lately. I may as well tell you how I feel. If you folks were financially secure, I would be happier now than I have ever been which would be natural since I am going to marry the girl I love and who loves me.

You know, never in my life have I felt closer to you two; I seem to have grown up suddenly and life has taken quite a different aspect. I can see, now, everything in its proper place and with its proper value, and right on top of everything stand my father and mother surrounded by thousands of memories that have suddenly grown much clearer and more dear than ever. And yet, at the very same moment, I feel that you folks think I am letting you down and it is a horrible thought which has haunted me ever since that bad session we had on the phone.…

It is queer, the things that pass through my mind, streams of little memories that are as clear as day to me now. I see you, Dad, coming in from Yarrows when I was playing with my new meccano. And you, Mother, washing my lip after I’d tried to knock that lamp post down. Dad teaching me how to ride my fairy cycle or me watching the back of your head when you were playing the piano in the ‘Alex’ and I was perched in the front row. Sunday school and the musical nights with Gus. Mother carting me in a shawl through railway barriers so that I could go for less fare and Dad exasperated over my music lessons. And those two years of pain I had; what would I have done without you when I often felt that I was finished with being strong and healthy?

All through those thoughts there is one thing stands out like a beacon; the wonderful way in which you put me first and gave me a chance to be something in the world. At this moment, I know that what I have and what I am, I owe entirely to you and never did any son appreciate the fact more.… And for goodness sake don’t think that you are losing me. You have got me more firmly and closely at this minute than you ever had when you were putting little silk blouses on me. And it will always be that way. And if you’re worried about my choice, you don’t need to. Joan isn’t the perfect creature and has her faults as we all have but I couldn’t find a better wife if I looked for the rest of my life.

She worries like mad over her folks too, as she does a lot to support them. They haven’t any money except what her old man is making and he hasn’t much of a job. When he was clerk of the council here, they had lots of money but now they are broke. Joan does a lot towards the running of their house apart from her wages. She does the shopping and a lot of cooking and general housework.… She could have married money several times over but she has chosen to come and share a bed-sitting room with me which proves a few things.

Now it is very late and my eyes are closing so I really must stop. Remember, as they say about here, ‘It’ll be right!’

This was an immensely difficult time for Alf, with his loyalties split between the girl he loved and his parents to whom he owed so much. His mother should never have worried about her son’s choice of wife, one who would look after him superbly all his life. Joan’s greatest pleasure was looking after people and it was not only Alf, but his children as well, who would benefit from this admirable quality. From the earliest days of their marriage, when she would cook, keep a clean home and faithfully answer the telephone for the practice, right up until the final months of his life, when she helped to nurse him through his incurable illness, she would be a totally dedicated wife. The determination to marry Joan Danbury in 1941 was never to be regretted for a moment.

Happy though he was at the prospect of marrying the girl of his choice, the stark response by his parents to his engagement – and, later, marriage – to Joan Danbury, threw Alf into an emotional turmoil. The debt which he felt he owed his parents was one he considered he could never repay, one which preyed on his mind to such an extent that it was partly responsible for a severe breakdown he would experience twenty years later. It was a debt he would, in fact, repay many times over.

James Alfred Wight and Joan Catherine Anderson Danbury were married at 8 o’clock on the morning of 5 November 1941 in the church of St Mary Magdalene in Thirsk. It was a bitterly cold day, and the sum total of five people attended. The best man was none other than his senior partner, Donald Sinclair, while Joan was given away by her employer, Fred Rymer, from the mill in Thirsk. The elderly Canon Young, who conducted the marriage ceremony, shivered with cold throughout and could hardly get through the proceedings fast enough.

At my parents’ Golden Wedding celebrations held at the Black Bull Inn near Richmond in 1991, my father reminisced, during an amusing speech, about his quiet little wedding all those years ago. His abiding memory was of Donald standing next to him, his teeth chattering with cold, and mumbling a long succession of ‘Amens’ at regular intervals, while Canon Young droned on in the icy church. At one vital point, the Canon asked Alf, ‘Will you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded husband?!’ He corrected himself upon receiving a blank stare. Alf would never forget his feelings on that happy day as he walked out of the church with his new bride. He wrote later, ‘I’ll always remember that sight – the cold frosty morning, the empty street facing us and the slanting beams of sunlight.’

It was an amusing experience for Joan and Alf to watch, many years later, the wedding of James Herriot and his bride in the television series ‘All Creatures Great and Small’. The occasion portrayed was a substantial one, with the bride wearing white and many notable people in attendance. The reality was so different; although not uncommon during the war years, few people will have had a more modest wedding ceremony.

Somewhat surprisingly, Joan’s parents, both of whom thoroughly approved of Alf as a future son-in-law, did not attend the wedding of their only daughter, despite living only a mile or so away from the church. However, they had their reasons. Apart from Joan’s father, Horace, being very ill at the time, they were aware of the problems between Alf and his parents and, knowing that Alf and Joan wanted a very quiet wedding, they decided to stay at home. With Alf’s parents having stated their reluctance to attend the wedding, together with difficulties presented in travelling around Britain in wartime, the result was a complete absence of both sets of parents on that unpretentious, but nevertheless, important day.