Wife
That's my missus - Shirley. We got married in the same year as Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer - 1981 - so we will be celebrating our forty fifth wedding anniversary in October. She was a young nurse when I first met her and I was a slightly older young teacher. We have stuck together through thick and thin, including health and money issues, raising two wonderful children and now jointly experiencing the special joys of grandparenthood. Let me say this about Shirley. She was a brilliant, devoted mother and is now a wonderful grandmother. The little ones love her completely. She is practical and attentive when it comes to their toileting, laundry and emotional needs. Partly because of her own rural upbringing with a mother who was a stay-at-home farmer's wife and partly because of her old-fashioned nurse training, she is unflappable, pragmatic and naturally caring. All of our married life, she has taken charge of the laundry - the washing, the drying, the ironing, t...