Prelude to 'The Fire of Love' (CsH)

It's April, me duck!  It's that time of year when romance and love and weddings, though not necessarily in that order, fill the air.  Everybody loves a wedding, nobody can resist a romantic story.

This is my contribution to complement the hype of the Royal Wedding.  It's an old story of an old couple but if you brush away the dust of  past years, it can be quite enthralling -  like watching a kettle boil.  Here goes!

Once upon a time, in the era of   "zaman nought belum"  (that's how my nephew Mahzan would describe it) there was this boy-twit  from Paekakariki, New Zealand ........  


The boy-twit in 1960

.......and this nerdy girl from Pasir Panjang, Singapore.


My dear ole mum was so pleased to see her tomboy daughter dressed up like a real girl.  But it didn't last very long.

 They were as different as chalk and cheese.  But, if I may say so, she had more brains between her ears (it comes naturally with us girls)  and  her sporting prowess was unbelievable.

Just compare their School Report Cards .......



HIS - Total is 80.2 %



HERS - Total 90.5 %

Furthermore, she loves the outdoor life, being one of the early pioneers of the Marathon  from Shenton Way to West Point, Pasir Panjang.



She's the one in front with her best left leg forward

As far as I know he spent most of his youth fishing in the Bay of Plenty, North Island with his mates.  I was often persuaded to ooh and aah at the big scar on his big toe.  It was almost chopped off because of a misdirected axe - he still has a poor sense of direction!  His other achievement was when he won the  rock 'n' roll competition in his little village.  His partner was his sister Jane.  No other girl wanted to dance with him.  His prize - a carton of cigarettes.

Kate Middleton finally met her Prince Charming.  As for these two,  they pursued their very different callings but  somehow landed with each other as of the 1980s.

There was no grand wedding, no exchange of goats and cattle (as dowry), no gold and diamond jewellery.  It was just a simple nikah at Masjid Jurong followed by doa selamat with the family and within 6 hours he whisked her off in the big Silver Bird to his home in Leicester.

It was , and still is a junk marriage - collecting junk I mean - and a love of travelling kept them on their toes.  Because of his Scots ancestry, travel was never a three-star affair - it was rucksacks and budget hotels all the way.  I love it too, living and travelling dangerously!

They lived a modest life like the Stone Age hunters and gatherers.  He hunted for books and old garden tools. She gathered old embroidery , old postcards, old Geography textbooks, old cutlery as well as sampler materials for her patchwork, gramaphones etc etc.  Her junk took up almost two-thirds of their living space and he had to make do with less.  But despite this unequal sharing of territory their eccentricities kept them together .......

Some husbands buy their wives expensive material gifts but I have no desire or use for such fripperies.    Instead I receive brilliant offerings in the shape of  this magnum opus ........

Such is his devotion - and all because she gives him such adulation and such care.... like this conferment of his status in our house.

Before "Fatimah's Kampung" there were other stories, one of which I have posted on September 24 2009.

This year we celebrate our Silver Anniversary and I shall launch another mini opus by the spouse ........

This is just the "gazek" .... like we used to say in the old days before they screen the big movie in the cinema.

The rest is yet to come.  Barbara Cartland, eat your heart out!