It was big - maybe three and a half feet by two and a half, and would have dominated the small room had it been the first thing one saw on entering it, but the engraving of Luke Fildes 'Village Wedding' was hung on the same wall as the door into the room, so one needed to enter before seeing the picture in its full glory. It was above a prickly green settee whose pampas grass embroidered antimacassar gave a small measure of smooth relief.
Full of interest too - the shy bride and top hatted groom and crowds of villagers, including a cocky soldier and clinging girl, following them, waving them on their way along a rutted street past thatched cottages. I hadn't seen the image for some forty years - had forgotten its existence - until I spotted it on a wedding day greetings card in a shop in York. Bought immediately, and I learnt for the first time that it derived from a painting by Luke Fildes, one of four major Victorian social realist artists.
Seeing the picture instantly recalled the rest of the room: my parents had married straight after the war when both jobs and houses were scarce and although they tried to buy a house it was too ambitious once my brother and I arrived - accidents both - so they finished up sharing a house with his parents - not likely to have been a happy experience for anyone. They slept at night in this same sitting room, and during the day it was our living room - overcrowded and dominated not only by this picture but all the other paraphernalia necessary for coping with small children. I well remember being washed one morning, a bowl of water brought in from the kitchen, the big brown Bakelite radio, round-edged and yellow dial - suddenly blaring out Puccini's 'One Fine Day' and me covering my ears with fright at the screeching sound. That was something that had another lasting effect - regrettably, the experience put me off opera for years!
[This also appears on Thinking Ten]
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