Some months later, we announced to her parents that we wanted to get married.

Well! Everything "hit the fan" as they say! Louise's mother burst out with:
"Who's going to look after the children?" (We later consoled poor Mother- in- law to be with the news that there would be no children.) - We had learned not all that long after we got serious that I could not give Louise any children.

Some time later we heard that  Louise's mum had called my mum in a real panic!
"Margaret!" She cried,
"They're talking about getting married!"
Mum-in-law-to-be expecting my mum to be horrified and to be aghast, shocked and all the other terms of horror, my mum just replied...
 "Isn't that terrific!"

I guess, to Louise's mum it must have looked even shorter in time between our meeting and our announcement of marriage. However, she did not realize just how much we were seeing each other every day, pretty well, at work.

Following all this Louise's mum being the good Catholic mother she was, began to scheme to try and break us up.

Firstly, it was organized for us to have pre-marriage counselling with a Nun if you please! Then later we attended a pre-marriage course in Parramatta at the Catholic church. Finally, we learned there was a Catholic priest who did some work with the Deaf, as were we, both. (As a matter of fact, many years later as I write all this...Louise now hears better than I do!)

We agreed to go and see him. That was a "fizzer" as Barry (the priest's name)  could see that we were much in love, and knew what we wanted to do.  He even offered to marry us, himself! Even in a non-catholic setting! We assured him we were ok with our own arrangements, but he was great and made no attempt to interfere. Really! What do Nuns and Priests know about marriage?
We met in August 1985, and then we got engaged on March 26th (in between our birthdays, 25 and 27 March of the same year.)

it was a lovely night at the now non-existent "Casserole Kitchen" in Eastwood, not far from Louise's parents' home.  My Mum, Louise, her family and I were all present. We were to be married at St Alban's, in Epping on the 14th of March,1987. 

 Louise and her Mum had been looking for suitable places for us to start our own home. They eventually found this flat, part of a whole house in which we would occupy the front section. Three weeks prior to our marriage, I moved into the flat, on my own, at Guildford in the South West of Sydney. One night I was coming down the street towards the flat, and I saw some loud arguing and so on going on out in the street. I managed to get into the flat, unscathed, and left the lights off.

Then the noise got closer until I realized the source of the noise was coming from behind,  in the adjoining flat. It got louder, and I heard a woman screaming. I then decided to call the police. Seems someone else already had the same idea and beat me to it. I eventually saw, through the almost closed blinds, the police arrive and remove one or two persons from the scene. What a great start, in the place we were to spend our first six months together, prior to the purchase of our home.