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was not entirely as we thought when Pamela’s showed her mother the ring. Mrs Wakeling immediately took out an eyeglass and studied every facet of my gift with the expertise of a valuer at an auction.

Our wedding was planned for Boxing Day 1953, as I could not get a full week off work at the time as I had only just started working with D. Napier & son, in Acton. At least with the Christmas bonus I would be able to afford the honeymoon. The Wakelings helped us find a downstairs maisonette in Pinner and kindly furnished it with their surplus furniture from The Paddocks.

What we did not know at the time, was Eric and Constance Wakeling, Pamela’s parents, were in serious financial difficulties. When Pamela’s grandfather,

William Henry Wakeling, died in early 1951 he left his half share of the Comben and Wakeling building company to his son, Eric. The business was worth some two million pounds in those days.

The shares and investments he bequeathed to Muriel, sister of Eric, Pamela’s aunt. On paper, this division of the estate gave Eric a two thirds share and his sister, Muriel, a third. In order to pay the Estate Duty taxes, Muriel had to sell £30.000 of the shares she had received but there was no way Eric could realise twice this sum without selling his company shares and thereby considerably reducing his 50% holding in relationship to his partners, the Combens. Death duties were high in those days and the company had large bank loans for the purchase of land to build housing estates. These large debts and the taxes had to be paid but the money could not be obtained without selling off valuable company assets, something Eric did not want to do.

Pamela’s grandfather had left Pamela a valuable Marriage Settlement making provision for her in the form of property and investments. On 23rd December 1953, three days before our marriage, Pamela was taken to the high court by the family solicitors to see a Judge in Chambers. There she signed a number of documents passing what must have been a six figured Settlement over to her parents to be held in Trust. Pamela had no idea what it was all about nor did she have a copy of what she had signed, after all she was getting married three days later and her interests were elsewhere!

With Pamela married, the Marriage Settlement could be used as collateral for a bank loan to service the Inheritance Tax and Bank collateral being demanded. This was the reason that such overtures had been made to lure me into the family. This was why we had been given every encouragement to get married.

Though I had always suspected something strange had been going on, Pamela always begged me not to question what had happened at the High Court. She was afraid this would cause a row or upset with her parents. Throughout our fifty years together, I knew something was odd was going on but it took us time to fit all the puzzle pieces together.

Before we married we had received so much in the way of incentives but all these stopped after the event and we had to pay our own way. Pamela had a small income from the few shares she owned and post office savings but from the Marriage Settlement she only received tax demands, which gobbled up our savings. Such demands were for income being received from the Marriage settlement for it contained shares and property which were still in Pamela’s name but we did not receive this

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