St Michael's, Cas Llwchwr, is an old church overlooking the River Loughor and standing close to the castle. Small white washed cottages surrounded it and not far away was the Trocadero Café, where a friend and I sometimes went for coffee in the evenings and to play the juke box. 

Today, the door of the church was left open for those standing in the porch to listen to the service.  I was pleased that the hymn Oh Perfect Love, which can be tricky if the congregation is not familiar with it, was sung with gusto.

After the wedding photographs outside the church, we went to the Stepney Hotel, Llanelli, for the reception. The tables were decorated with roses supplied by friends who were champion growers and, although it was late in the season, the pinks, peaches and creams of the flowers glowed against the white tablecloths and china. 

When the main meal was over, it was time to cut the cake.  A waiter arrived with an elaborate silver knife, almost as large as a ceremonial sword - (I do not elaborate).  The photographer positioned himself to take some (more) photographs. I gripped the knife, after managing to heft it into position, and Peter put his hand over mine. When the photographer had finished, I  looked for a place to put the knife down but Peter insisted on sticking the tip of the blade into the cake, asking how many slices we needed to cut, not realising it would be done for us. 

There was little time to fuss with the cake, though. We were married at ten o'clock in the morning and our train was leaving at 1.30, so we changed quickly and left for our new home, a rented apartment.  

Half an hour into the journey there was a six minute scheduled stop in Carmarthen and Peter dashed out and bought me a copy of Good Housekeeping magazine.  I would have preferred She magazine, because of the fashion and beauty in it, but I had always liked cookery and might even have become a cookery teacher if a Chemistry qualification had not been necessary.

It was about three o'clock when we arrived at our destination and the end of the line. We made our way up the hill, the gorse and the Irish Sea gleaming in the sunlight and arrived at  the lovely, lovely town that was to be our home for the next eleven years and the place where I was to experience terrible loneliness.