“My mum was an Atheist, something that was not really  communicated in 1950s South East London (Well Downham just inside Kent). She did not want to marry in a church, nor in a traditional white wedding dress. My nan was outraged and although a soft, gentle empathetic woman, she dug her heels in and said she would not attend the wedding. She was not a religious woman but a registry office wedding with no bridesmaids, hymns or a white wedding gown was for her unheard of.

My mum went to get her dress in Central London. She chose a pale pink New Look dress of two layers, silk with organza on top. You might be better at deciding when looking at the photographs. As a child she told me it was a Norman Hartnell. She was a working class woman so it may have been a Hartnell copy r the real thing. Either way it was the most expensive dress she had ever bought. No one else had input and she went to get it on her own. It was paired with the little skull like hat you can see in the photos. She adored her choices.

As a child I was surprised that my mum had ‘married in pink’ as in the 1960s white was still most usual. She married in 1956. All her three sisters married in churches in white. As a little girl I was a little disappointed. At first. Yet she told the story of her pink dress with such love and such pride that I became proud too and came to love the wedding photos that showed her dress to best effect. I treasure the memory of her telling me how she wanted it. She’d seen a picture beforehand. It is now that I treasure these black and white photographs. I will never know the exact pink of that gown, but In my mind I know the colour clearly and intimately. That pink, that was hers, will always be mine. I have no one to ask about it. There is no one now.

I have to add that my nan came to the wedding. She turned up on the day. My mum had no idea until she arrived at Lewisham Registry Office.”

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