The Canoe, A Love Story

My second marriage was, to be honest, was a total sham. I refuse to say her name because it's a marriage that I wish to forget, so I will only say, I jumped from the frying pan into the fire and got badly burned. She was I Jehovah's Witness, and as soon as we met, she wanted me to join her religious sect, and as someone who has always held religion as a good thing, I started to get involved, I liked what I read, I liked what I listened too, so I took it all in and joined her church. We got married, but I was told that when we made love, I had to wear protection, she said. "I have my family, I have no wish to have that stuff sloshing around inside me, and I don't want any more kids. So for the next seven years, I became a meal ticket for the wife and her son, who it seemed like all his food between two slices of bread, including his Sunday roast.

As for our sex life, I was allowed a pack of three a month, and the wife soon learned how to force me into using all three in one night, I also found to my regret, that the wife took it upon herself to wear a nightdress at night, plus her bra and underpants, and if I tried to touch her bust, which I must admit was very nice, I was classed as a pervert, and if I tried to touch her down below, then that was against God and I would be punished. So it was a marriage of me providing food for the table, working hard and going to bed. We had months when we didn't talk to each other, and in bed, when she wanted sex, she would say. "Michael, I bought you a little present,." she would then show me the pack of three, but I would say, sorry too tired. By the time we had gone through seven years, I had had enough, so one morning after a blazing row, I walked out. I hitched to the main road out of the North East, and at a service area I picked up a van going to Plymouth, I had £5 in my pocket and just the clothes on my back. I walked from the motorway into Taunton and the police station, my brother in law was a police officer and if I could talk to him, he would arrange with my sister to come and get me. Kieth was not on duty, and the woman behind the counter was not happy to give me his address, to be honest, I looked a bit of a mess, during the row with the wife and son, he had hit me with a very large portable radio, as I put my hand up to fend off the blow, the sharp edge of the radio ripped into my wedding finger cutting it, and I had blood over my work shirt, and blood on the hanky that was wrapped around the finger. After about 15 minutes, both my sister and brother in law had picked me up and taken me home, after a nice shower and a hot meal, I was able to tell them the whole story.

My sister bless her was able to find me a bedsit, and I got a job as a van driver for a local company selling car and van parts, I was also able to get a Sunday job at ASDA stocking up the shelves, so I was working six and a half days a week, and on the Saturday afternoons when I was off, I would go into Taunton and shop for an hour, then go back to by little bedsit and watch the T.V. My mother and father lived in Wellington, and for that first Christmas, bought me a pushbike to get to work on, but also, so that I could visit them as well. Both mother and father were going to be away for Christmas, and on the day they left for there holiday break, they bought me a box of goodies, saying. "As we won't be around, here is your Christmas dinner." In the box was a small chicken, vegetables, potatoes and a small Christmas pudding with cream. Well I was not the best cook in the world, but I did my best and found myself sitting down for Christmas dinner at 11 am everything was done to a T, what I hadn't thought about was the chicken, but it tasted good, and I had a load left over for the following day. As I got used to living alone, my cooking skills increased tenfold, My second divorce was going ahead, but very slowly, it seemed that the ex didn't want it, and was planning to send her son to live with the oldest sister, but it was only part of the story as far as I was concerned, and a small part, so I said I was not coming back and that the divorce should continue.

I had been living alone for some three months, and I really needed someone in my life, someone to talk to, to laugh with and enjoy the things I liked to do. One day my sister came to me and told me a new club was starting up in Taunton for people like myself, and that should join, I had to go to a local pub called The Gardeners Arms. it's gone now, I believe its a mini market. So yours truly got himself dressed in his good trousers, a clean pressed shirt and tie and headed for the pub. In the lounge bar, I bought a shandy, I was driving the next day, and sat at an empty table A man called Hugh came up to me, asked if I was here to join the club, and when I said yes, he gave me a form to fill in. As I sat there, a woman walked in, she had a jacket on and was wearing blue jeans, under her right arm she was holding a crash helmet, she went to the bar and bought herself a drink, and as I sat and watched her all I could see was that beautiful bottom under those jeans, as I was taking it all in, she walked away and sat at a table near a good dozen other ladies. it was at that moment, a lady called Linda came up to me and asked if I had filled in the form, I handed it to her, then she said with a cheeky twinkle in her eye. " Anyone takes your fancy," and I pointed to the woman with the crash helmet on the table. "I wouldn't mind getting to know her," I said. 

The main meeting was held at a pub called the Anchore on a Wednesday night, we were permitted to use the skittle alley, there was a jukebox in the corner for music,  and when I arrived, there were around fifteen people in the room, again I headed for the bar and bought my usual shandy then made my way back into the skittle alley. It seemed, that the men were sat one side of the room, and the girls the other side. After a little spill from Hugh regarding the rules, the main one being, if the lady said no, then the men had to accept that, any man who didn't, would be banned from the club and his picture put on a notice board so that the ladies in the club could steer clear of him when in town. Once the talking was over, someone put the music on and Linda came up to me and asked me to dance with her, with the dance over I was told to stay on the floor, she then grabbed the girl with the crash helmet and said. "You look a good match, you dance with each other, and we did. Linda did this with every guy in the room so that within half an hour we were all dancing.

I found out that the woman I was dancing with was called Maureen, I went and bought her a drink, and we sat together talking, she was divorced, had three children and her ex had been in the Royal Marines, she told me a story of gambling drinking and other women, I then told her my own story. As the night wore on, we found ourselves in the car park still talking, the pub had been closed for some time, but we both seemed to want to know as much about each other as possible, we both liked what we saw, and we both liked what the other thought about relationships.

I eventually moved in with Maureen in the July, we felt that we could make a go of things, I agreed to pay half of the bills and we went half on the shopping as well. We had made love, a few weeks before this, I had taken Maureen home, as usual, I would borrow my sisters mini, anyway on this particular night we had sat talking on her sofa, I looked at my watch, it was two am, I said I had better make a move, but between the kisses and cuddles, Maureen said. "It's late, why don't you sleep here tonight." I looked at her and then at the sofa. "Ok, get me a pillow and blanket and I'll sleep on the settee." But Maureen shook her head. "I have a nice comfortable double bed in the other room, you can sleep there, with me." I saw the twinkle in her eye but said. "If we sleep together, you do realise what will happen don't you." I'll take my chances." she said. In her bed, she asked me if I had anything for protection, and I remembered, from my days up north, I had one rubber left, so doing the right thing, we made love. It was as bad as it could ever get, I felt like a 17 year old doing it for the first time, and when we lay side by side, I said. "I made a right pig's ear of that." BUt all Maureen said was. "Practice makes perfect. we fell asleep in each other's arms, and in the morning, we made love again, no rubber this time, skin to skin as they say, and it was fantastic, Maureen and I were like the pieces of a jigsaw, we fitted together perfectly, and still do, Maureen was too old to have any more children, so for us, lovemaking was a total joy, we were both in our 40s and found that life together as a couple was beautiful. 

One day, there was a knock at the door, and two men were stood there, they were from the local Kingdom Hall, and wanted to talk about God, however, I told them about my marriage to the ex and what it was like to be married to a woman who even on her wedding night made me use protection. They both listened to what I had to say, then asked if they could come back at a later date and talk again, we shook hands and I agreed. Maureen was a little upset with me, she is not religious, to her Jesus was just a name in a book that she does not read, and doesn't want to read. Anyway, two weeks later I had a visit from the two gentlemen who told me, under Gods law, a marriage is not a marriage unless the sperm enters the womb, this is why you must consummate the marriage on the day of the wedding if possible, and as I had to wear protection for the seven years of the marriage, there was no marriage, the whole thing was a sham. even though we had a piece of paper under British law saying we were man and wife, under God, we were more or less living in sin, the marriage was not a marriage under God. I was also told, that I had not been disfellowshiped from the J.Ws, and had every right to return if I wanted too, but as I said, too many questioned had failed to be answered by the organisation, and I was now heading in a different route. We again shook hands and that was the end of that, and to be honest, 33 years down the line, they have never come back.

Maureen and I were married on the 20th June 1990, a great day, we were due to wed at 10-30, but the couple before us failed to turn up, so we went in early, we exchanged rings and promised we would work together to make the marriage work. In the registrar's office, we both signed the book, it was then that the registrar looked at us both. |"Mr Palmer, I have just looked at your decree absolute, it was signed by the judge at 10-10, you put that ring on Mrs Palmer's finger at 10-15, in all my year's vat this job, that is the shortest divorce I have ever come across, five minutes earlier, and we would be talking bigamy. Maureen and I, with our witnesses, went across the road to a small tea shop and had a cuppa, then we headed for Wellington to my mother and father who had said, as Michael was now on his third wife, they didn't want to get involved, just come back when the deed was done, and they would treat us to dinner. We had pictures taken in there garden, and then went out to a local pub for a slap up meal. At two in the afternoon, Maureen and I were back at the flat, I carried my new wife over the threshold, then stood her in the bedroom, undressing her, I laid her on our bed and consummated our marriage, as we lay on the bed, still joined together, Maureen had a smile on her face. "Well love, the sperm has entered the womb as required, but now my darling, would you do it one more time, just to make sure.

Maureen and I had lived together playing at being man and wife for almost three years, in that time I had tried to show her that I was a one woman man type of guy, I had fallen in love with her the day she walked across the bar and stood at the counter to get a drink, that bottom was her best asset, still is. and the first time I tapped it saying that was a love tap, she sort of looked at me, but now, she knows, We don't need to say I love you, we just know, yes we are both 76, we cannot make love like we used to, but we can and do have our kisses and cuddles every day, and like the old adage says, the love of a man and woman, is like a tree, the route grow under the ground, and the tree grows tall. With love, it starts with holding hands, the first kiss, then you make love. As the love grows, then so does the bonding, she knows, he can be trusted to look after her and care for her, yes, he will talk to other women,, like those at work, but his eyes will not stray from what he has at home, the woman who loves him, the woman who when he says let's make love will always say, this body is yours, the routs are planted and the tree of marriage grows strong.