Meeting the In-Laws

 A Valentines Day piece from 2012

When a relationship gets serious the prospect of meeting folk who look likely to be future in-laws can be quite a milestone and immensely daunting.

My first ever introduction to and meeting with Allison's mother, Maureen was quite unusual.

She was on a plank crossing a deep trench at the back of her house.

It has always been a favourite double-entendre in the family that the first thing that Allison showed me on visiting her parents' home was her Father, George's ,back passage.

It was a narrow, dark, brick vaulted arrangement with lengthy ladders tidily stowed above head height behind secure outer and inner timber doors . What amazed me even more was that it was shared with the immediate neighbours with a reasonable right of way and use through it.

That just about exhausts that line of humour.

Allison led me into the walled yard beyond the passage where I was faced with that deep trench.

Being nervous I speculated to myself that it was perhaps one of a number of things;

1) An obstacle course to assess if I was good material for a son-in-law. A Brown family Krypton
Factor.

2) A precaution against flooding in the pre-Hull Tidal Barrier era.

3) An open grave as Maureen and George were very protective about their daughter.

As I approached Maureen came out from the back door and deftly negotiated the series of plank bridges over the excavations to greet me.

In a complete invasion of personal space and etiquette, for a first ever meeting, she grabbed me firmly by both cheeks (facial) pinching a good deal of puppy fat jowl between thumb and index finger.

I cannot recall if she gave me a kiss because the constriction on my breathing from that particular welcome was making me feel a bit dizzy. I feared that this was the first stage of getting me into that large hole in the ground.

As my facial muscles regained their handsome, youthful composure Maureen looked at Allison and exclaimed that I looked just like Howard Keel.

For a brief moment I had a picture in my mind's eye of the giant steel toothed assassin out of the Bond movies and felt that was a bit rude to draw attention to matters of an unfortunate bodily nature so early in the proceedings.

The resemblance was because I was wearing a checked lumberjack shirt like one of the male cast of 'Seven Brides for Seven Brothers' which it turned out was one of Maureen's favourite musicals and incidentally one of the best performances of that particular American actor and singer.

I was a little bit disappointed as I fancied myself as having a resemblance to Robin Williams or Harry Enfield.

Thank goodness, Maureen was talking more about my clothes rather than my physical attributes as in that particular year Mr Keel would be approaching 70 years old.

I think that we were both pretty nervous at the first meeting but we did hit it off immediately as though we had known each other for many years.

Maureen explained that the trench was part of the foundations for her new kitchen and bathroom extension which I found reassuring, after my initial mental wanderings ,and could relax.

Within a couple of minutes I had been assimilated into the family marking the ceremony with a lovely cup of tea, the very first one in a series of, to date, many thousands.

I had also experienced my very first moment of genuine warmth and unconditional love from Maureen that is very much a part of her whole being and is so cherished by those who are privileged to know her.

A few years later, as part of his Bride's Dad speech George, a quiet, reserved type, did say that he liked me............and Allison, which was a very good foundation for our married years together.