I first met Wendy at the start of the Autumn term when she joined Miss Purfield’s class at Sandhurst County Primary school as a five year old in 1947. Sadly I have no recollection of this meeting. No doubt the facts that she was a year younger than me and a GIRL made her of no interest to me. I was first aware of her a few years later when I had to dance with her at the end of the school Christmas play. I went home and told my Mum that I was supposed to hold her hand but I just held her finger tips; something my Mum delighted in repeating back to me a few years later.

Fast forward to July 1959 when I was home from Derby for my 2 weeks annual holiday and, being at a loose end on my first Saturday home, I took up Mum’s suggestion and went along to the Flower Show in the primary school. One of the few people I saw that I knew was 17 year old Wendy Willard whose sister Tricia was a close friend of my sister Mary and who had just returned from a holiday in Folkestone with her friend Sally.

At the end of the show, the organisers auctioned off the exhibits and Wendy wanted to buy a plant for her mum but claimed to be too shy to bid. In a moment that would shape my life for the next 64 years, I volunteered to bid for her and successfully secured the plant, all accompanied by much “girlie giggling” from Mary and Tricia.

There was obviously some plotting in the Willard house over the weekend as a small girl messenger arrived at Mum’s house on Monday morning with a message from Mrs Willard asking if “John would like to play tennis with Wendy” that afternoon. There wasn’t much to do in Sandhurst so I opted to be chivalrous and said “Yes”.

This was the start of a relationship that saw us courting for 4 years at long range, married on September 7th 1963 , raising 2 sons who have been a joy to us and who have given us 4 lovely grandchildren and going on  to celebrate our 60th wedding anniversary in 2023. In that time she raised 2 sons brilliantly, washed and ironed countless white shirts, overcame a fear of water and learned to swim in her 40s subsequently raising thousands of pounds for charity with sponsored swims and fought her way back from 3 hip operations and a stroke in her 50s.

Truly she was “the Wind beneath my Wings”