Hartley Neita
SOMETIMES I wonder how young men and women of my earlier years ever got married.
The journey from meeting through dating and engagement was full of obstacle courses.
Fathers were the problem. Most girls and young women lived with their parents until and if they got married. Mothers were usually supportive of their daughters when they fell in love. But fathers? Mercy, O!
The locus of meeting girls was primarily church. Usually, however, she was there with her father, and he watched her as he prayed. Luck came when she joined the youth club and even then the lay reader or junior parson was usually a friend of her father and he was under strict orders to report any flirtation with his daughter at these meetings.
Sometimes, however, luck came to both. Telephone numbers at the office were exchanged. Never her home. If any man called her there, she would be questioned in detail. Who is he? ... Who are his parents? ... Where does he work? ... Is it a good job? ... And then the most dreaded question of all: Why is he calling you?
PERSONAL LOVE CONVERSATIONS?
Telephones in offices then were shared with at least six members of staff. Only the officer in charge had an individual telephone which staff members could not use. He also watched with a glaring eye the users of the staff telephone and he interrupted those young men he suspected were using it for personal love conversations.
"You, boy, bring me the Purchase Order Book."
Time came when interrupted telephone calls and whispered words at club meetings were not enough. Time came to visit her at home. Arriving on his bicycle, he stopped at her gate. She was expecting him and was pacing the verandah. "Let me hold the dog," she called out. The dog was a barker and so her father came from inside to see what was disturbing the animal.
Meanwhile, the young man took off his bicycle clips and dared to push open the gate.
"Can I help you?" her father called out.
"It's okay, Daddy. He's a friend of mine." Walking towards the gate she met her friend halfway on the walkway. As they neared the steps, she introduced them. "This is Headley, Daddy" ... "Hello Teddy" ... "No, Daddy, he is Headley."
They sat on two separate verandah chairs. Her father walked to the gate, ostensibly to make sure Teddy or Headley, or whatever his name was, had closed it properly. Being a moonlight night, and bright, he walked through his garden, picking a yellowing leaf from one plant, and reaching to squeeze mangoes hanging from branches to see if they were ripe, even though he had done so earlier in the evening.
Joining the couple on the verandah, he began his new programme of grilling.
"Stanley?" "No Daddy, he is Headley..." "Oh, yes. Stanley. How old are you?" ..."Twenty..." "What school did you attend?" ... "Excelsior"... "What examination did you pass?"... "Higher Schools"... "Will you be going to University?" ... "Yes, sir. To Howard or McGill"...."To study, what?" ... "Medicine"... "Isn't that a seven-year course of study?"
That last question was for his daughter to realise she was just a waiting station in his life. For anything like marriage, she would have to wait seven long years.
Over the next year before leaving for university, he had many names. There were Hurdley, Sedley, Matthew, Harry, Teddy, Maxie.
By the time he returned as a doctor, she was married with three children. Their names were Stanley, Matthew and Sedley.
He started dating all over again.
