Chapter 8

Friday 15 May 1976, 3.15pm

I thought, no, I had quite simply assumed, that Gina was on birth control. We must’ve rung the bell while we were in Barcelona. Silly, careless me, leaving it all to Gina. Early in the spring Gina proudly announced that she was pregnant. She hadn’t directly asked me, but she had determined that as we had discussed and agreed that children would feature in our future before Eric’s death, and neither of us was getting any younger, so she just let nature run its course, hence the heavy and slightly unpredictable the periods of late.

I got down on my bended knee, as soon as the news of the baby sunk in, and I asked Gina to marry me.

She immediately said “Yes”.

I asked Fred for her hand after the event and he gave it gladly. Pam’s only comment, accompanied by a big smile and a hug, was, “You took your sweet time about it. But never mind, you make such a lovely couple, so give me a hug and call me ‘Mum’ from now on.”

“Mum, thank you for welcoming me to your family. I have never been so loved in all my life and I owe your family more than I can ever repay.”

“Nonsense,” Fred said, “you are family, son, and you’ve been a part of us for so long that this marriage is simply confirmation of the fact.”

We wanted a quiet wedding, but it outgrew our ambitions, and it was Gina who persuaded my estranged son Gerald and my daughter to attend. By then my daughter Sophia Elizabeth was the size of a small house and I finally had a wedding day dance with her on our May wedding day after just a two-week engagement.

Gina and I had two lovely children together, Robert “Bobby” Alfred Crabtree, who was born in December 1976 and Margaret “Maisie” Eleanor Crabtree in June 1979.

In 1996 I retired from the job of selling screws, nuts and bolts, but continued as a board member of King’s and several other companies that I had been invited to join, through business contacts made over the years. For King’s, I was invited to monthly board meetings, attended the AGM and other get togethers in my own right as a director, as well as by being Gina’s husband.

Gina and Fred wanted me to join the board at King & Son, very much on a part-time basis. I spoke to my bosses in Birmingham and it turned out that most of the directors of my company served on several boards at the same time, without any conflict of interest. Through my new contacts with King’s and Tremblett’s I had picked up a lot of business, so my bosses encouraged me to accept the offer.

I sat down with Gina and Fred and agreed that I would serve as a part-time member but my director’s token remuneration would be donated to the different annual charity that the company chose and sponsored each year. I didn’t want to be regarded as only in place because I was married to the female Chairman of the company. I also wanted to have a role or portfolio which would be my main contribution to the work of the board rather than just turn up for monthly meetings. Fred thought I could formulate and keep updated all the policies of the company, regarding race relations, labour relations, disciplinary procedures, working practices, ethics, fair pay, emergency evacuations policy, security, etc, which I readily agreed to. Over the years, with increasing legislation, there were more and more policies to oversee and that made me feel useful to the company, even long after I retired from full-time work.