Pin-up cartoon on a chopper with Born Wild lettering

You will not believe what Dennis turned up on at the registry office. Not the Austin we'd been saving for, but a black chopper with a raked front end that sounded like a kettle left on the boil, and a headlamp polished so bright the registrar squinted through the whole of the vows. Your mother had a fit. I had a grin I couldn't put away.

Dennis had painted a girl on the petrol tank, a pin-up with a fat curl over one eye and a wink that followed you round the car park. He'd nicked the idea off a barber in Dudley, he said, and Mum said the barber could have it back. I thought she was the bravest thing on the road. The girls at the Co-op had laughed at her for years for loving a man who fixed bikes for a living, and there she sat, waving at the cake shop like she owned it.

We rode to the reception at Hollins Farm with me pillion behind him, my veil tucked into my collar so it wouldn't snap off in the wind. Halfway up Coppice Lane the engine died. Dennis swore, climbed off, and started pushing the thing up the hill in his good suit while I held the handlebar and laughed until I cried. A van full of lads from the bowls club slowed to shout encouragement. By the time we reached the gate the whole party had come out to meet us.

So that is what marriage is, Maureen. Someone pushing a stubborn machine up a hill, and you holding on, winking at the road. Write back soon and tell me about your Ray.

Love, Pat