my parents’ wedding day

I have a theory that my parents married each other mainly to annoy their respective parents. 

My mother was supposed to have married some nice well-fed Jewish boy, a son of someone in her parents’ Sydney eastern suburbs social circle. Her parents  were newly-affluent first-and second-generation immigrants and my mother was your classic Jewish Princess. 

My mother’s mother, Grandma Julie,  was I think, seriously pissed off that she missed out on the big show-off wedding in the synagogue, with her daughter swathed in metres of tulle, dripping pearls and gardenias. Reception with free-flowing champagne, dancing; and the mother-of-the-bride the envy of all her bridge-party friends. 

Mum’s old scrap books - which I never saw until after her death - suggest that up until then, Laurel had happily fulfilled her mother’s social aspirations. The scrap books are full of cuttings from the Sydney social pages. Sweet and  pretty, my mother  is usually on the arm of some tuxedoed young man. And is described as attractive brunette or charming and vivacious...in a breathtaking brown suit or  striking a new fashion note in a dark green ensemble

She’s snapped in strapless evening gowns, with gardenias in her hair, at The Younger Set Ball and various charity dos. She is seen at  The Trocadero, Valentine’s and  skating parties at The Glacerium. Always well-dressed and always smiling. 

Then, in her early twenties my mother sails off to England ( prettily-gloved hands waving, great tangle of streamers from the deck of the Stratheden ) and meets my father.  

I suppose my father was a breath of fresh air to her. He was tall and lean and cynical. Handsome, of course, too. Quick-witted, and not afraid to hold controversial opinions. He quoted Marx and Shakespeare, Shaw and Russell. 

He took her camping. He introduced her to a different idea of what it meant to be Jewish. Told her about Jewish intellectuals and artists - Einstein, Chagall, Menhuin. She was prepared to overlook the fact that he could be a bit moody. 

His parents had hoped that he would marry a nice fresh-scrubbed Sunday School teacher from the Camberwell Church Of Christ in Melbourne, where my grandfather was a lay preacher. They were stern old Scots, teetotallers, who knew that money was the root of all evil. God knows what they thought of the vulgar new in-laws!

My father grew up in a house where good morals and correct English grammar was more important than having fun. Unsurprisingly, he ended up drinking, smoking, womanising...

So there they all are, all those long-dead ancestors of mine, on that long-ago day in September 1953, lined up for the photographer. Both sets of parents probably full of misgivings. 

And of course it didn’t turn out so well. Mum used to say that the marriage was happy for the first year or so. I think that meant before I was born. 

I often look at this photo and marvel at the absolute otherness of the two families. And feel how I have a foot in each camp somehow.