A Spanish Girl and Her English Soldier – A Love Beyond Boundaries

So as Ana’s wedding dress was being made while she continued to help her father with the hotel, I was trying to sort stuff out in England. First I had to undergo my Roman Catholic preparation which basically meant 3 lessons with a priest and then a promise to let Ana bring up the children in the religion she chose. Such was the self confidence of the Roman Catholic Church that it assumed that that would mean Roman Catholic. The question of guests was a bit tricky given the short notice, but I was able to get Peter Booth and Ian Cunningham, both soldier friends of mine at University and Sue, the wife of another soldier friend of mine at Leeds. I was also happy that my prep school headmaster and his wife, the Duggans, were coming.  He was one of those people that you encounter through life who believe in you and do all in their power to help you. Sadly some others could not make it, but those  who were coming were really good friends and that made me very happy.

Next came the matter of parents and other relatives and friends of parents. Now life becomes a bit more complicated verging on bizarre.  I did not ask my father, partly out of concern for my mother and partly because it was quite hard to think of why I should. My uncle whom I loved dearly could not come and that was the extent of my family.  My mother for reasons that even now I can only guess at asked some friends of hers that I hardly knew and in the case of two of them that I am not sure she knew that well. She also asked quite a pretty blond girl that I vaguely knew. She was very nice and thankfully oblivious to her role, which I suspect was a last ditch attempt by my mother to stop me marrying Ana, although I hope I am wrong. And in fairness to that girl, I am sure she would never knowingly have taken on that role – not that anyone could have and that includes both Brigitte Bardot and Claudia Cardinale.  I suppose that the only real effect of these little shenanigans was to add a bit more tension, but I was focused on one person and one event and nothing was going to deflect or deter me.

And so we descended on Menorca in dribs and drabs.  The reunion with Ana was another joyous emotional passionate explosion of scarcely believing, of love, of holding on tightly, of kisses and touches, touches that were reassuring, that were checking that we were both real, that were exchanging so many messages, of telling of how we had missed each other, of catching up.  Her family were so welcoming and embraced me as one of their own, her younger sisters spoiling me all the time.  Ana looked more beautiful than ever, her shiny silken hair highlighting her tan which set off those astonishingly attractive deep brown eyes. There were things to do. Ana was still spending some time working; we had to see the Priests and finalise the arrangements. Ave Maria was to be sung as the centrepiece. We had each got the other’s wedding rings (again measurements like everything else were exchanged through the post, but thankfully right). Her father had sorted out cars and the reception which was to be in a restaurant right beside the beach of the lovely Cala Blanco and he had very kindly given us a wedding present of our honeymoon in Menorca.

There were the tensions with my mother, but Sue did a fantastic job of shielding us from the nonsense. Afternoons were often spent on the little beach next to the hotel and it started to feel as though we were finally getting to that point where Ana and I would be setting off on our life together as husband and wife.  Again neither of us could really quite believe it. It felt so grown up, it sounded so grown up, but it was what the grown ups seemed to demand that we do if we wanted to be together, well certainly the Army did. So I think we thought we would play husband and wife, while all the time just being two children who were madly in love.  Being with her, seeing her, watching every movement, every expression, be it joy or surprise, listening to her voice or her laughter, feeling the lightest of her touches simply made me marvel at the treasure I had found, made me even more certain that she was truly my life and that I would spend that life in love with her, guarding her, doing all that I could to make her love me as I loved her and trying to keep her happy. I wanted her love and I so wanted to be worthy of it.

20th July 1973 is an important date in my life, but one that has always seemed to play second fiddle to 21st July – indeed only recently Ana pointed out that we should perhaps have given it more love and respect.  In the afternoon, Ana and I went to the Ciudadela Town Hall, that lovely old building whose golden gleam lights up the des Born Square, to be married by the Mayor at the civil ceremony.  It was a quiet affair and I knew that until we had been to the Cathedral, no one would really consider us to be married, not least Ana’s parents and the Priests. Ana’s father had organised a pre wedding supper in a lovely seafood restaurant on the other side of the Island in Fornells.  So we all set off for there, her parents, grandparents, friends, my mother, a few others. Peter Booth who had a hired Seat 600 said he would collect the Duggans from the airport and so missed the supper. On our return to the hotel we were given the awful news that Peter and the Duggans had been in a head on car crash and were in hospital in Mahon, on the opposite side of the Island from Ciudadela.  It was a real shock and there was discussion of postponing the wedding.  But it transpired that while seriously injured, there was nothing life threatening and very selflessly all three were insisting that we go ahead with the wedding.  Ian Cunningham stepped into Peter’s role as best man.

It was a strange night. There was a sense of sadness and sorrow – and you could almost feel the unspoken question: “Is this a sign?” As an optimist, I would not even countenance such a thought, but I think it hit Ana badly and triggered a bundle of interlinked emotions on which I have already touched.  She was facing life in a new country and not a normal life but one as an Army wife; she was leaving her family behind, a large family to whom she felt very close and that she loved deeply; she had yet to master English; she felt hostility from my mother.  But also she had had dreams of travel and of work whose fulfilment now appeared to be disappearing. And to make matters even more difficult there was the question of what was happening with her parents and how they would all cope without her. What I now realise more clearly is that she was also giving up a wonderful way of life in Spain, a country that she loved for its vibrant living of life to the full, its food, its culture, its music, its fun, its diversity and of course she was also leaving behind her friends and her language. The odds were pretty stacked in favour of her staying when set against her love for me and all that was about to entail.  And that night the pressure came to tell. She cried, she said that she could not go ahead with it, that she loved me but she could not marry me now (I shall not repeat what I have already written about the timing of our wedding).  While I was aware that all sorts of things were going on behind the scenes, I was not privy to them. Her father, quite naturally took her side, but her Grandmother would have none of it and slapped her!  I went to bed not quite certain of what was to come but I went to bed determined that this was a battle that I would fight.  Seen in retrospect, I can see how I might look very selfish, but the love I had was selfish.  I could not picture my life without her and I still cannot. I was convinced that no one else could love her as I did and no one would look after her in the way that I would. Perhaps even more importantly, I felt, I knew that we were made for each other, that this was so right.

It was July and hot.  The atmosphere was still quite tense, but Ana appeared to be back to making an appearance at the Cathedral.  Ciudadela’s cathedral is truly beautiful. It is old, made of that lovely golden stone, simple and not over ornate.  Inside the cathedral there is not a lot of light. It is not gloomy, simply shaded from the sun, which helps keep it cool behind its thick stonework.  The English sat on the right, the Spaniards on the left. Ian stood beside me offering encouragement and hope, but the clock was ticking and no father and no bride.  They were both sat at the time in a cafe where Ana had stopped for a drink,  after driving around and around with a father constantly telling her that she did not have to get married if she did not want to.  It is not hard to picture the surprise on the faces of people wandering by at seeing a bride, and one described with no exaggeration by her sisters as a Diva, in her wedding dress sat in a cafe having a drink. It is hard to describe the courage that she showed in finally stopping the car at the Cathedral, walking up the steps and through the huge doors. It is just as hard to describe how she must have loved me to do that. It is simply impossible for me to even start to describe what happened as she walked through the large black Cathedral doors.

I have never seen anyone so lovely. It was as though the sun had decided to walk in with her and put on its own light show.  The music filled the vast spaces of the Cathedral and she walked up the aisle, proudly upright, soft of foot, floating, her eyes gleaming and her smile taking over the role of the sun.  I fell in love all over again, something she has made me do time and again throughout our life together and now beyond. The dress was a pure white, simple, lightly emphasising that oh so amazing figure. She carried a single rose.  And then we were alone side by side and she looked up at me and she gave me my very own smile and those dark brown eyes pierced through mine and reached into my heart and said “I am yours; you are mine – forever”.  The Priests guided us through the service and Ana and I each then said our vows in Spanish. And then a kiss, oh what a kiss, sweet, soft, warm, meaningful, a thousand words passing through our lips sealing our love, our future, our commitment. Hand in hand, walking down the aisle, innocent of all idea of the future other than it would be together – smiles from the congregation, kind warm words lost in the music and the love passing through our hands and then the car and away to Cala Blanca in a daze.  She had made her choice. It was brave and adventurous but it must have been so frightening and I will thank her forever for putting her trust in me, for showing me a love that gave me my life for 43 years and that even now as the tears flow at her passing is in truth the only thing that helps me take the next breath.  To have been loved at all is the most special and wonderful thing, it is  surely the greatest privilege and gift. To have been loved by my soulmate, by the most extraordinary girl that I have ever met, by the girl who I knew to be the only one for me, the girl who gently and passionately received every drop of love that I had to give and then embraced me with her love, her warmth, her passion and her courage is nothing less than the gift of life and what a life it was to be.

And so from a simple decision to pop into that party, from a promise made on that steep street of Montmartre, from that extraordinary premonition that took me to her doorstep within minutes of her departure and my losing her, from the elopement and police hunt, from the saving of her life and from the determination of a young Grenadier student to battle the odds and from the courage and love of a Dali’s beautiful young Spanish girl, from all of this came the opportunity to prove that my promise was real, that she would never be alone.  But in a way that was a  given. The promise I made in the Cathedral offered me the chance to show my love in every way that I could: I wanted to be her lover and her husband; I wanted to be her knight in shining armour, there to protect her from all harm; I wanted to show her that there could be no love like mine, a love so all encompassing that it would wrap itself around her with the gentlest of touches, with passion, with strength and courage; I wanted her to feel spoilt and cherished; I wanted her to feel that I was her best friend and laughter maker; I wanted her to know that from the moment I first cast my eyes on her, she was and would be the only one for me; I wanted her to know that she was in my eyes the most beautiful creature on this planet; I wanted her to know how much I loved every little bit of her, be it her warmth or passion, her caring, her desire for justice, the softness of her young voice, the sparkle of her eyes, her love of reading, the tilt of her head to her right, the way she touched her hair, the way her touch set me alight, the way she would stroke my forehead, even her anger and fury, her dancing, the way she walked, her dreams, the square set of her shoulders, her pride and self respect, her vulnerability, her tears, her smile, a smile that truly could light up the galaxy, her love of the arts and her desire to constantly learn, her amazingly dark passionate eyes, her love of languages, her lips and her nose, her courage, her neck and her back, her tiny delicate hands, her desire to make me happy, her breasts and her hips, her laughter and her shapely legs, her dry sense of humour and her love of the absurd, her love for her country and her family and of course her love for me – that love that gave me life and purpose, that reached into my soul and breathed goodness into me to make me a better human being.

Above all I wanted her to know that no one could ever love her as I did and would. How I wanted her to be truly happy, to live her dreams. Over the years to come, we often talked of how, one day when we had become very old, walking hand in hand, we would tell each other that we would do it all again. She has told me that often and each time my heart has crumbled as I simply cannot think of anything more wonderful to hear.  And I have told her so many times how I too would not change anything, that I would do it all again.  I just wanted to keep remarrying her. She loved that. And I know just how much we both meant it as we fell in love with each other over and over again, each time more strongly, more passionately, more meaningfully. And, each time I told her that I loved her more today than yesterday, this year than last year, she would laughingly protest – but her eyes shone with joy, her lips in silence told me how happy she was to hear that and to believe it. And those eyes signalled back oh so clearly that that was how she felt too. After 45 years we were more in love than ever.

But fate has intervened and we cannot walk hand in hand into our old age to look each other in the eye and whisper those things to each other. It was about the only plan that we ever had. And the pain of not now being able to live that plan can never be soothed.  But I can walk alone and whisper those words to her – and I do and I will until I can rejoin her and hear her laugh, see her smile and receive that look she would give me that said it all.

At her farewell in the little chapel I repeated my wedding vows to her so that she would know that even as she left I was remarrying her. I hope it brought a gentle smile to her spirit. I know she loved it when I told her I wanted to remarry her and I did and I do because I am so in love with YOU, the girl of my dreams who became and remains my life. I will never be able to thank you enough for there is not enough thanks on this earth to do you justice.

At just after 7 in the evening on 21st July 1973, the Priest asked us if we had come freely of our own will, if we were decided and if we were ready. We had; we were and then I said the following words which opened the door to the rest of my life, gave me my life and to this day continue to tell me why I feel that I am the luckiest man alive:

Yo, Diarmid, te quiero a ti, Ana, como esposa y me entrego a ti y prometo serte fiel en las alegrías y en las penas, en la salud y en la enfermedad todos los días de mi vida

(I, Diarmid, love you, Ana, as my wife and I surrender myself to you and I promise to be faithful in happiness and sadness, in health and in sickness for all the days of my life.)

Ana then made the same declaration and commitment and my world erupted in a joy that has lasted for 43 years.  But when we were alone, Ana told me that our love would endure beyond all the days of our lives and that we would find each other again to continue our love affair forever.