Holy Cross resident, Bob Clayton, has made his first return visit in 67 years to the church where he and his childhood sweetheart, Marguerite, were married.
He was one of a small group who made the short trip from the nursing home to St Peter’s church in Monkwearmouth. St Peter’s, the oldest surviving church still in use in the country, is one of the residents’ favourite trips out – mainly for the tea and scones in its little café, Bede’s Bakehouse.
Bob told everyone how he was married there on 26 March, 1949, at 9.30am – joking that he had asked for the wedding to be early so he could ‘get it over with’. Then he asked a member of staff, “Do you think the vicar remembers me?” Bob was informed that the vicar who married him had left St Peter’s over 50 years ago!
Time certainly flies, doesn’t it?