Post by Dave on Aug 17, 2010 18:08:16 GMT
I wonder how many wedding receptions I have been to over my life, I’m sure Carol could tell me all the ones I have been to with her over the last eighteen years we have been together and I’m sure I could remember some of the ones before I met her but not all.
But of all of them none have matched the feelings I felt at the one I went to last Saturday night at the Redcliff Hotel here in Paignton. Most of the night I just watched the groom with his new bride and was so over whelmed with a feeling of happiness for them both but more for him as now he was safe and had a future when not so long ago that may not have been the case.
Eighteen years ago Carols youngest son was just five years old and his very best friend Dan lived just up the road and I watched them both play in the my garden and grow up together and form a friendship that will last forever of that I’m sure. Young Dan was always at our house and he became more like a part of our family and he was the perfect friend for Steve as Steve was for him.
With his dad being ex army and his older brother already in the army I think Dan was expected to join the army as well as soon as he left school and that turned out to be the case. But to me he looked and behaved just like a very young boy and surely not grown up enough to train up and put a gun in his hand and send him out to Iraq.
But that is what happened and he was the only person I knew who was out in a warzone and I would always be asking Steve if he had heard from Dan and if he was alright out there.
I think it must be the same for anyone who knows someone who is fighting in a warzone, that fear when you hear on the news a soldier has been killed and you end up praying it was not the person you knew. But then you learn its not him or her and a wave of guilt comes over you as while it was not the person you knew who was killed, it was someone who had a mum and dad or even children of their own that was and that family were going to be devastated when they learned the news. The guilt comes about as you feel a kind of relief it was not the person you know and selfishly at that moment of relief, did not stop to think others would now be suffering as it was someone they knew.
Dan is now 23 years old and I have seen very little of him over the last eight years, a few times when he was home on leave he has called at the house to meet Steve before they went out on some night out and he recently left the army and settled in Nuneaton where his bride to be lived. The wedding took place down here as she loved the place when she has come in the past and the Redcliffe is such a great place to have your wedding breakfast and later your reception. Mind you Saturday was the first time I have even been inside the Redcliffe hotel and I loved the function room with its sunken dance floor and stage that I looked at and imagined I was on doing a show.
I got to have a good chat with Dan and wanted to know how it all was for him, I also talked with his mum who was so right when she said he went away a little boy and came back a man. Dan is lucky in the sense he never got injured and I felt his mind was very sound and not effected by all he would have seen and would have had to have done. His feeling was we are losing the battle out there and we should get all our brave boys back and I found myself agreeing with him.
I went back and sat with Carol and son Alan was at the table asking us if we were ready for another drink and looked at me and said there’s no point asking you Dave. When we got there at 8pm Al came over and asked us what we wanted to drink and he nearly fell over backwards when I asked for a pint of strongbow, he came back from the bar with a pint glass full of cider and a bottle half full of the stuff. It seems they did not have any strongbow and the one he got came in bottles that were larger than half a pint and he said there were special glasses for this cider only they did not have any.
The good news is I did get it all drunk by 11.45pm the time we decided to head for home; well you already know I’m such a lightweight when it comes to drink. One last time before we left to look at the happy couple and see the glow of happiness coming off them and one last time to think about the mums and dads who due to their son or daughter not coming home, will not be part of such a day and evening the parents of the bride and groom enjoyed.
I did not take a camera but did take a few pictures of the outside of the hotel and the great area at the back that you get to from the room the reception was held in on my phone it was a beautiful dry evening and I spent as much time out there that I could.
But of all of them none have matched the feelings I felt at the one I went to last Saturday night at the Redcliff Hotel here in Paignton. Most of the night I just watched the groom with his new bride and was so over whelmed with a feeling of happiness for them both but more for him as now he was safe and had a future when not so long ago that may not have been the case.
Eighteen years ago Carols youngest son was just five years old and his very best friend Dan lived just up the road and I watched them both play in the my garden and grow up together and form a friendship that will last forever of that I’m sure. Young Dan was always at our house and he became more like a part of our family and he was the perfect friend for Steve as Steve was for him.
With his dad being ex army and his older brother already in the army I think Dan was expected to join the army as well as soon as he left school and that turned out to be the case. But to me he looked and behaved just like a very young boy and surely not grown up enough to train up and put a gun in his hand and send him out to Iraq.
But that is what happened and he was the only person I knew who was out in a warzone and I would always be asking Steve if he had heard from Dan and if he was alright out there.
I think it must be the same for anyone who knows someone who is fighting in a warzone, that fear when you hear on the news a soldier has been killed and you end up praying it was not the person you knew. But then you learn its not him or her and a wave of guilt comes over you as while it was not the person you knew who was killed, it was someone who had a mum and dad or even children of their own that was and that family were going to be devastated when they learned the news. The guilt comes about as you feel a kind of relief it was not the person you know and selfishly at that moment of relief, did not stop to think others would now be suffering as it was someone they knew.
Dan is now 23 years old and I have seen very little of him over the last eight years, a few times when he was home on leave he has called at the house to meet Steve before they went out on some night out and he recently left the army and settled in Nuneaton where his bride to be lived. The wedding took place down here as she loved the place when she has come in the past and the Redcliffe is such a great place to have your wedding breakfast and later your reception. Mind you Saturday was the first time I have even been inside the Redcliffe hotel and I loved the function room with its sunken dance floor and stage that I looked at and imagined I was on doing a show.
I got to have a good chat with Dan and wanted to know how it all was for him, I also talked with his mum who was so right when she said he went away a little boy and came back a man. Dan is lucky in the sense he never got injured and I felt his mind was very sound and not effected by all he would have seen and would have had to have done. His feeling was we are losing the battle out there and we should get all our brave boys back and I found myself agreeing with him.
I went back and sat with Carol and son Alan was at the table asking us if we were ready for another drink and looked at me and said there’s no point asking you Dave. When we got there at 8pm Al came over and asked us what we wanted to drink and he nearly fell over backwards when I asked for a pint of strongbow, he came back from the bar with a pint glass full of cider and a bottle half full of the stuff. It seems they did not have any strongbow and the one he got came in bottles that were larger than half a pint and he said there were special glasses for this cider only they did not have any.
The good news is I did get it all drunk by 11.45pm the time we decided to head for home; well you already know I’m such a lightweight when it comes to drink. One last time before we left to look at the happy couple and see the glow of happiness coming off them and one last time to think about the mums and dads who due to their son or daughter not coming home, will not be part of such a day and evening the parents of the bride and groom enjoyed.
I did not take a camera but did take a few pictures of the outside of the hotel and the great area at the back that you get to from the room the reception was held in on my phone it was a beautiful dry evening and I spent as much time out there that I could.
