Today Titsvillians I am going to talk about weddings. Or should I say one in particular. We all love a good wedding. After all, what’s not to like - plenty of lovely food, beautiful surroundings, love is in the air, little cartoon birds tweet merrily around your head and bunnies hop at your feet, as you celebrate the union of two people who you care deeply for. That’s how it goes, right? But you’re not here for that are you my lovely Titsvillians? Of course you aren’t. But before I get into it, we need to start before the event in question, because that’s where the fun begins.
It was late in the evening, last orders were about to be called when my boyfriend at the time, Ian (yes Titsvillians, ‘Weight-Watchers’ Ian), comes back from the toilet clutching a phone number and looking a little bewildered. It turns out he had just agreed to be someone’s best man.
Me – That’s nice. Do I know him?
Ian – I doubt it, I don’t even know him.
Me - *blank faced silence. I think we need a drink.
Turns out Ian had bumped into someone from school whose name he couldn’t even remember. Following the polite “what are you doing these days” chat, this guy had gone on to have a bit of a meltdown and told Ian that he was getting married in only one week but couldn’t get a best man. Apparently, he then asked, nay begged, Ian if he would step and so he agreed.
You see, this is what happens when you are afflicted at birth with ‘Northern-man tribal loyalty’, which for our younger viewers, is a 1980s version of chronic people-pleasing, but for men.
So, the day comes quickly. We arrive at the church to be greeted by a relieved looking groom who we have since found out is called Carl. He is marrying a woman who we did not know at the time, but would later find out, is called Karen.
One sniff and we knew that this was shaping up to be a ‘good old traditional working-class wedding’. All weddings were still pretty traditional in the 80s. You didn’t have to get dressed up as a Peaky Blinder or duck when a ring-carrying dove swooped overhead like a light aircraft and shit on your head. And ‘good old traditional working-class weddings’ were pretty much identical, so you knew what to expect, namely, a simple itinerary consisting of: service, photos, meal, speeches, a boring bit where everyone gets even more drunk, then the final bit where a DJ arrives and plays the worst music ever produced from the previous two decades. The women, only the women, then shuffle around their handbags for a few hours before getting down on the floor in a line, amongst the broken glass and vomit, to do the ‘Oops Upside your Head’ dance. Someone gets dumped and sits crying in the toilets, a couple of blokes have fight in the carpark and nana has too many sherries and wees in her tights, then everybody goes home.
So I thought I knew what I was in for as I watched Ian nervously fiddling with his tie at the front of the church. Suddenly, an out of tune organ cranked up and we got our first look at the lovely bride. Now I’m not saying she was a hard-faced woman, but I reckon you could have chopped wood on those cheeks and she wouldn’t have blinked. Unlike the usual smiley, enchanted bride, nodding to her guests as she walks down the aisle, Karen snarled her way to the front like a lioness prowling towards a grazing springbok. She was holding the arm of, presumably, her father. He was a huge, bald man with a 2cm wide scar that ran over his head and down the left side of his face, like someone had tried to take his head off with a dicky can-opener. You could see where she got her looks. Two chiffon-clad, blue bridesmaids shambled behind her like a pair of angry Smurfs. No one looked like they wanted to be at this wedding. I was beginning to wonder what we had let ourselves in for.
We did our best to smile through the photographs and at the other guests, even as they looked us up and down suspiciously. The polite ones whispered about us, the not so polite ones just said, “who the fuck are you then?” as casually as if they were commenting on the light drizzle. I can see why we stood out. We didn’t have black eyes or swear at the vicar. The bride didn’t attempt to introduce herself or ask who we were. I thought this was a shame because in years to come, as she opens her wedding album, her little children on her knee, and shows them the day mummy and daddy got married, she will have to ask daddy, “who the fuck are they then?” and unfortunately, he won’t have a clue either.
Anyway, it was soon time to go to the venue. The rest of the wedding was to be spent in the back room of a Council estate pub called something like The Slaughtered Cat, the sort of pub that you would only go in if you were already very drunk, lost, or were about to die anyway. We knew we needed to get this over with as quickly as possible.
We managed to meet up at the bar, get a large drink and do a rushed recky of our situation.
Ian – I found something out.
Me – What?
Ian – It’s Jim McCracken’s daughter.
*note – The McCrackens were a local family who were known for their charitable good works – Ha, got you there – I jest. They were really known for supplying very big men to do very bad things. And that’s all I’m going to say on the matter in case one of them can read and turns up on Substack.
Me – Who is?
Ian – The bride. Carl got her pregnant and has had to marry her. She doesn’t want to get married either, but Daddy McCracken has ‘insisted’. Oh, and no one ‘normal’ wanted to come to the wedding for obvious reasons.
Me – So that’s why poor Carl couldn’t get a best man?
Ian – Exactly. Why didn’t I check what I was getting in to?
Me – I bet Carl’s penis is thinking the same thing.
*We look over at poor, pale Carl, who is hiding in a corner, chatting to an elderly lady, probably hoping she will protect him.
Ian - Poor sod.
Me - Fuuuuuck, what about your speech?
Ian – What about it?
Me – You better take out the bit where you and your mates hung him over the canal bridge until he gave you his packet of Cheesy Wotsits?
Ian – I can’t take that out, it’s the only thing I remember about him.
Me – I would. They might take offence. After all, he’s family now.
Ian – We were only seven.
Me – I don’t think they will care about that.
Ian – Do you think they will kill me?
Me – Probably.
Ian – Oh God
It was dawning on me that I had accidentally found myself in the middle of a Poundland pub with piss-stained carpets and torn, pink woodchip, in a ‘gritty’ Northern Council estate, ten-bob, adaptation of the The Godfather.
We were interrupted by a call to be seated. Ian sat at the top table, sweating, and I was shown to a table of strangers who looked me up and down, like I had just dropped my CID card and a warrant for their arrest next to the warm Lambrusco. Most of them looked half-cut. A couple to my right were getting rather frisky. By the time it got to dessert they were virtually having sex behind a nearby curtain, while a large gentleman who had dipped his tie in some custard shouted, “go on my son” every time the velveteen twitched. Ian and I swapped furtive glances as we fiddled with our chicken-in-a-basket, and then the speeches began.
Ian stood up. “I first met Carl when me and my mates…we… err.. had wanted some Cheesy… never mind.” He pretended to have a cough. “Anyway, I’d like to thank everyone for… this wedding and Karen for being a lovely…wife… and of course the bridesmaids who look great, don’t they?” He smiled at the room, waiting for a murmur of agreement that never came. “And you lot, I mean, you, the guests for… yes… and…that’s it. Thank you.”
He sat down with a thud. There was a brief silence before a weak ripple of applause and a hard stare from the father of the bride. Ian was too busy staring at the remnants of his apple crumble to notice, but I did.
Once the speeches were over we tried to make our escape. We collared Carl as he was on his way to the bar. Ian told him I didn’t feel well so we were going to head home. Poor Carl’s face was stricken.
“Please, you can’t. If her brothers get pissed and start fighting, I’ll be expected to split it up. I can’t do that on my own. Ian please.”
Of course he agreed. Because Northern-man tribal loyalty even extends to dying for someone whose existence, a week ago, wasn’t even on your radar. I wasn’t happy. Although I did feel sorry for Carl, I also liked living. By wine number four however, I had been persuaded to stay. I can’t remember why but it was probably some Northern-woman tribal loyalty that extended to dying for a boyfriend you had only been seeing for a year and who you weren’t even that into. Well that, and the fact that if he died no one but me knew where we were. Someone would have to tell his mother.
In situations like this there’s really only one thing left to do and that’s get very drunk. And we did. And I think there may have even been a point where we got down on the floor and did the ‘Oops Upside your Head’ dance. I also have a hazy memory of me sat in an ashtray, an angry-Smurf bridesmaid draped over me clutching a warm bottle of Newcastle Brown, promising that we would keep in touch forever now that we were besties.
Thankfully, in the 80s you didn’t have to die at the hands of a gangster to disappear. Before mobile phones and the internet, you could move a couple of miles down the road and never be seen again. It was bliss. I split up with Ian not long after the wedding and we never bumped into Carl or Karen again. Maybe Carl ended up in the canal after all, wearing wellies filled with concrete and clutching his Cheesy Wotsits. Who knows. As for Ian, we lost touch too. Maybe he’s in the canal with Carl. Maybe if there’s a literate McCraken out there somewhere reading this, I’ll soon be joining them. Three old acquaintances, sharing a packet of Cheesy Wotsits at the bottom of the canal, and reminiscing about when, for one brief moment in time, their paths crossed at a wedding that no one wanted to go to. Happy days.
Until next time Titsvillains…
link for further adventures of ‘weight-watchers Ian’ -
https://katedalby.substack.com/p/lies-damned-lies-and-sassistics
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Author’s note - My tales are based on true events. They are lifted from years of journals and written from my POV for the entertainment of the reader. Where consent is absent, names, places and details have been changed to protect anonymity.
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