Recollections
Marilyn was born on 30 April 1943 to Harold and Minnie Bates.
She had five siblings – Patricia, Pauline, Maureen, Peter and Michelle. Early on Marilyn believe that she was Chinese because she had been told that every fourth child was born in China.
She went to Macaulay Street Primary School until she was 11, and then to Armstrong Street School until she was 15. When she left school she went to Grimsby College of Further Education (as it was then known) to do a secretarial course.
When Marilyn left college, she worked for the Yorkshire Electricity Board (YEB) as a Comptometer Operator.
Marilyn also attended St Pauls Church in Grimsby, where she was confirmed. One of Marilyn;s friends from church, Phillip. went to Wintringham School and introduced her to Graham at a party – which was the start of a long and happy relationship.
She married Graham, who was in the RAF, on 21 March 1963 and they were posted to Malta in December 1963, where Simon was born in August 1965/ She died the day after what would have been her 62nd anniversary, the first day of Spring.
When they were posted back to England, they lived in Middleton St George and in August 1967, Nicholas was born. Shortly after, they were posted to Cyprus.
She loved to wear skirts and three net underskirts underneath to make the skirts stand out – as that was the fashion in those days.
When they were young, Marilyn and her sister Michelle shared a bedroom. Marilyn loved Christmas, and one year she told Michelle not to wake her up when Father Christmas had been, however in the early hours of Christmas morning, Marilyn began excitedly nudging Michelle so they could open their presents.
Marilyn and Michelle had to sleep with posters of Cliff Richard adorning the walls, as he was Marilyns favourite singer. She used to ride a racing bike, which she loved.
She used to go to night school, with her sister Maureen where they took cookery classes and they use to race each other to see who could get home first, by going different routes.
She was a whizz on roller skates, skating up and down the local subway. She was happy to try out new things, and was lots of fun, but she had the odd calamity, for example when she decided to colour her hair and her family heard lots of squeals from the kitchen – and her hair had turned green!
When she was newly married, one occasion, she wanted to keep Graham’s tea warm in the oven until he cam home from work, however she forgot to remove it from the plastic plate, and, needless to say, it all melted!
Her cookery classes at night school stood her in good stead as when Graham and Marilyn left the RAF in the early seventies they moved to a small A6 town in Northamptonshire called Rushden. There she worked in the kitchen of the Skew Bridge Ski Club and later as an assistant cook at Whitefriars Infants School.
With Dad working away a lot, it was down to Mum to run the home and maintain discipline with Simon and Nick. The neighbours could see when she had been telling the boys off as they would pick her up and put her down outside the front door shutting her out there, then there would be frantic running from the front to the back doors as each was opened for her to re renter the house only for it to be shut just before she got there. Eventually any thoughts of discipline were gone as Mum would collapse in fits of giggles.
In 1984 they move a little further up the A6 to Stockport where her working life as a cook continued, firstly in the Stock Dove, Romiley and latterly in the staff restaurant of British Home Stores until the company closed it down and she was moved to the retail shop floor as a retail assistant.
Soon after moving to Stockport, they joined the North Cheshire Cruising Club (NCCC) where they spent many happy summers cruising along the canal network, first with a tiny cruiser called Nemesis, then a larger one that they named Gralyn, a concatenation of Graham and Marilyn – which ultimately morphed into a narrowboat, venturing as far south as the River Thames in London, getting stuck on the Chester Weir and falling into the canal waters many times as she rushed to climb back on board the boat after having close the previous set of lock gates.
A contribution from her NCCC friend Pat Christopher recalls: ‘I met Marilyn through the NCCC. We all joined at about the same time, then discovered we were praatically twins! I am two days older. We celebrated our 50th birthdays with NCCC in a tent at Whiteley Green. For our 60th we went to the Eden Project and the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall. We spent many holidays on the canal system at NCCC events and elsewhere. So many memories.
In the last years of her life after being widowed from Graham she reconnected with Chris Potter from their Sailing Officer years (Rear through to Vice to Commodore) who provided much companionship and introduced her to the Golden Memories Groups in Poynton.
Marilyn was the proud Grandma to William and James who she adored and had large collection of framed pictures around the house oaf them both and their partners.
Recollections from Michelle Westerman, Nicholas Speechley, Simon Speechley and Pat Christopher.