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Partners
A couple who lived and worked side by side for 43 years have finally tied the knot – after the bride decided to pop the question.
Colin Jones (74) had asked his now wife Pauline Young (72) to marry him every year since they first met in 1976.
But after the most recent “no”, Colin had resigned himself to never being able to put a ring on her finger.
So the B&B boss, from Maidenhead, England, was stunned when late last year pensioner Pauline, from London, asked him to marry her.
“When Pauline asked me, I almost fell off the bed,” said Colin, who now visits his love in a care home every fortnight.
“I’d been asking her all this time and now she was asking me, I said ‘of course I will’. We literally lived and worked together for 43 years, I’ve been floating on air ever since.
“People say they’ve been together years but really they have maybe an hour before work and then they see each other in the evenings – we were always together.
The pair – who were both in previous relationships and have five children between them from those marriages – met in South East England when their kids attended the same playgroup.
The couple then moved to Wales, where they ran a cabinet-making business named Young Jones for 30 years.
Pauline finally decided to pop the question in December last year after suffering for years from a rare neurological condition corticobasal degeneration – a disorder characterised by cell loss and deterioration of specific areas of the brain, according to Rare Diseases.
Her disorder had seen the couple pack up and move to Malta 14 years ago to open a B&B on the island. But three years ago they made the difficult decision for Pauline to move back to England after her condition deteriorated.
Colin now splits his time between the B&B in Malta and the care home in Telford, where he visits Pauline every several weeks.
“We never found anywhere we were really comfortable until Gozo. It’s very laidback – it suited us down to the ground.
“We had to work together, getting separate jobs would’ve meant being apart, which we never wanted.
“Eventually I could see a deterioration in Pauline’s condition. It was slow at first but it started to become more noticeable. It wasn’t discernible to other people, but when you’re that close to someone – when you’re actually living and working with somebody – you pick up on the small changes straight away.
“When Pauline moved to the care facility, she felt at home. They made her feel so welcome and safe. Science doesn’t really have an answer to her condition,” he said.
The couple struggled to get their legal affairs in order in time for an official marriage to be held, but St Georges Methodist Church in Telford agreed to hold a blessing service that fulfilled the same purpose.
On Valentine’s Day this year, the two wore their finest clothes for the church ceremony, with Pauline’s wheelchair suitably decorated. Afterwards they went to the care home for celebratory drinks and a wedding cake which the two cut together.
“I’d given up all hope of us getting married, I thought it would never ever happen,” said Colin.
“It was a real mix of emotions, I was surprised, I was worried.
“But we gradually worked through it and now here we are.
“The service was a blessing ceremony, but as far as we’re concerned it’s a marriage, it’s a show of love.
“The vicar has been absolutely incredible. She wrote out a whole service as close as she could to a wedding service.
“The care home did the reception, they said it was their wedding present to us. The home has bent over backwards for us – it’s really unbelievable.
“There’s so much love here at the moment. Everyone around us is so happy.”
Source: Magazine Features
