If the past is a foreign country, as they say, then our wedding and honeymoon in 1969 seems to have been on a foreign planet. Sitting on a leather sofa on a beach in Barbados, twiddling our toes in warm Caribbean water and sipping bubbly while gazing out at a magnificent tropical sunset, our gorgeous 40th anniversary dinner at the Almond Beach Village resort is something we could only have dreamed of back then.
True, 1969 was a big year, the first that holidays like this began to look vaguely possible: Package holidays to Crete and the Algarve were about to take off. But it would be years before Richard Branson would launch Virgin Atlantic.
A privilege for the rich
Only the rich took exotic foreign holidays. For Anna and me, then hard-up twentysomethings with great plans to see the world, only the most minimal of honeymoons was possible — and that was assuming our wedding took place at all.
For family and organisational reasons, our wedding was switched from East Yorkshire to York and the date changed to December 27 — the only one the local vicar could manage before I took up a new job in America in early January 1970.
A silly date, of course; too close to Christmas and only a handful of friends and family could make it. Unlike today, when youngsters spend thousands of pounds and years planning super-weddings and honeymoons, our reception was a low-key affair, followed by a two-day honeymoon in London, one of which was spent in the US Embassy getting Anna a visa to join me in Ohio.
Bringing in a new tune
This being the rebellious Sixties, though, we did leave our own little mark on the wedding. We gave the elderly church organist the sheet music to Procol Harum's Whiter Shade Of Pale to play while we were signing the register — the first time Dringhouses Parish Church had ever heard pop music played at a wedding.
Forty years on, it was time for us to have that honeymoon. Or at least for me to offer a way of saying "thank you" to my wife for tolerating 40 years of being dragged here and there across America and Britain. Those years had involved ten changes of address (including four moves across the Atlantic), two kids, four dogs, ups, downs, and absences as war, news and international politics repeatedly took me away from home — all of it leaving Anna to start and restart her medical career time and again.
A choice is made
So my secret plan for a Barbados holiday was hatched. Where else could the Almonds have gone in Barbados but Almond Beach? Perhaps we would get the best table at dinner, tended by staff who thought I was the Big Boss.
We were apparently among the first Almonds to stay at the Almond Beach Village — although there was a Canadian travel professional called Almon already visiting whose name confused the staff even more. Actually, the choice of name for the resort has nothing to do with the surname Almond. It turns out that developer Ralph Taylor, who built the first Almond Beach resort on the north-west coast of Barbados in 1985, had nothing more in mind than the local almond trees.
Pick of the Almonds
There are now five Almond Beach resorts: two in St Lucia, plus Almond Beach Club and Spa, the Almond Casuarina and the Almond Beach Village in Barbados. We picked the latter because we'd heard it was perhaps more spread out and established, with ten swimming pools and five restaurants.
And though the Beach Club and Spa is designated for adults only (16 and over), we are at an age when any small children — and perhaps also their struggling young parents — induce more of a sense of remembered amusement than annoyance.
But first we had to get there. Our actual anniversary date was not possible, so we picked a week starting January 13, which would also include my 64th birthday. But the 13th turned out to be the second great 'Snow Wednesday' in a row to close Gatwick completely.
Late but in place
To their credit, Virgin Holidays and Virgin Atlantic pulled out all the stops and got us airborne that day, even if the flight was nearly eight hours late and we all had to divert to Heathrow via the snow-hit M25. I certainly wasn't the one to complain when the chicken main course ran out.
Midnight in Barbados and still 26C! We arrived to a room that had the word "Welcome" written in flower petals on the super-size double bed, a greeting card, a bottle of juice in the fridge. The resort clearly knew in advance that we were coming to celebrate our anniversary.
Weddings and honeymoons are an Almond Beach speciality. But they also do renewals of marriage vows, growing in popularity at resorts and hotels throughout the Caribbean.
A bond strong enough
We did consider this but in the end decided it wasn't for us. Forty years of marriage, our little family as close as ever and the two of us still willing to go on holiday together was surely testimony enough to those vows.
For those who want it, however, the setting we discovered when first we toured the 30-acre site was perfect. One of the favourite spots for marrying or renewing vow, is the remains of a sugar mill tower set in a tropical island garden — an elegant white gazebo on the beach is another.
The total extra cost for us, including the officiating minister or registrar, would have been about £450 (Dh2,493).
Hardly anything outside of the inclusive price is cheap. The Sea Safari tour, including snorkelling and buffet lunch, was £48 (Dh266) per person. The Atlantis submarine tour was £68 (Dh377) each. The island tour was £43.75 (Dh242) each. As we just wanted to see the north cape, stop at historic Holetown and see Bridgetown, we rented a car for the day, for £56 (Dh310), including petrol and insurance.
What we would do instead, we decided, was a special anniversary meal. And in their flexible, accommodating way, the Almond Beach management set off to arrange it for our final night on the island. In the meantime, we would enjoy the resort and Barbados. For us, a different place for breakfast, lunch and dinner, the variety of pools and Jacuzzis and a long, lazy wander around the tropical gardens meant we could never get bored. For sports fans the price includes sailing, kayaking, pedalos, gym and tennis. You can enjoy a round on the nine-hole golf course for just £3.50 (Dh19) extra.
A birthday to remember
However, we did splash out for my birthday. None of this "Doing the garden, digging the weeds", as The Beatles sang in When I'm 64, just before we got married. In the evening, Anna and I took the Harbour Lights Beach Extravaganza tour. It was our biggest non-inclusive expense but was certainly worth it.
On a floodlit beach at Bridgetown, we danced to a local band, ate a good barbecue dinner, watched a limbo dancer and a fire eater, and I was given a birthday cake.
And so to our last night and our anniversary dinner on the beach. It was, without doubt, the best sunset dinner. A special wedding meal of lobster tail, tiger prawns, dessert. It was warm and quiet, and we even rescued a baby turtle confused by the light of our flaming torches.
And one final surprise from the Almond Beach Village before we plunged back to Gatwick's snow and delays — a stretch limo to the airport.
Conclusion? Our children perhaps know something we oldies didn't 40 years ago, when a wedding was just another old-fashioned thing to get through in an era of social change: It's actually a life-changing event whose anniversary gets more valuable the more time goes on — and worth celebrating in the best way possible.
Details at www.almondresorts.com
