Chapter 9

For the Christmas and New Year shows, we had to be in a studio at Broadcast House, in London. We were put up at a very nice hotel across the road, and our partners were allowed to join us. It was an interesting experience, going live over the whole network.

For New Year, we did the show up to eleven, when one of the bigger names took over. The four of us welcomed 2024 and watched the fireworks from a higher floor window. We could see the lightshow and hear midnight strike on Big Ben, followed by something that sounded like a war zone.

It had been an interesting end to the previous year. We had been invited to a lot of parties, being picky in where we went, seeing that we both had a reputation to uphold. One that we couldn’t miss was the end of year bash at a local hotel with Randalls’ colleagues. I met his superiors and some of his fellow detectives. Some were happy to get stonkered, but we kept sober. There was also an end of year party put on by the radio station. That was less alcohol fuelled but no less testosterone driven. Eve and I kept ourselves to ourselves, spending much of the evening with our partners and the station manager and her partner, a local lawyer.

The success of our morning show was something that created more problems. The two of us were expected to be visible around the home counties, while the playing of our special shows had us needed in other places around the country. In the time we had been in the studio, we had completed the ‘Mine the Archives’ shows to continue for another couple of years. Our weekdays became promotional visits to other towns, sometimes with audio recordings of interviews with local celebrities which we could splice into our future shows.

For me, I was also needed to show myself two counties north, having already been known and being heard again. With all our trips, we were taken in a station car, with a sound man as our driver and minder. My own little car had been traded in on a hybrid, which only got to use the motor when the battery was low, or when I went up to Colchester.

I was in Colchester a lot. I had visits to the doctor to monitor my progress, times in the store, even a few spots on the hospital radio and visits to the wards. Work time and my time was often blurred. It was on one of these visits that I had a serious meeting with my family.

So far, except for my working in the repair shop, my involvement had been remote. Dad and my brother had been running the company and had decided that it was as big as it should be. As an owner of a quarter of the business, I had been sent quarterly accounts, and could see that we were doing well. It had been the last dividend that had funded my new car.

The meeting was to discuss offers by two of the big national chains to buy us out and take over the business and staff. The only rebranding at the retail store would be to add the signage that it was part of the group. Well, that’s what they said. The wholesale and repair business would be rebranded as part of the other chain.

The offers were very good and seriously considered. My brother Alexander would be kept on as the manager of the retail outlet, as an executive of the new owners. Mum and Dad could retire and live the rest of their lives in comfort. Dad was still having lung problems and used an inhaler. For me, my share would more than pay off our house.

We batted it around for a couple of hours, but I knew which way we would go. In the end, we all signed the two lots of paperwork and the Nowak / Newman businesses were in the hands of the lawyers and accountants.

It was into the new year before the due procedure had taken place and the money allocated. I went to see our bank and cleared our mortgage, so saving many thousands from what we would have paid if it had gone the full term.

Eve and I kept doing our jobs and Randall was in the thick of his detective work. 2024 moved on, until we realised that we were both coming up for some holidays. We managed to organise two weeks that we would both be off in July, so thought about a wedding for that time. I had given the idea of a church wedding the flick, so we would be marrying in a registry office. The only problem being which one.

We decided on Chelmsford, because it was where the bulk of the guests were based. As far as my side were concerned, it was just my family and a few uncles and aunts. I discussed it with my parents, and they were happy with that arrangement. One oddity was that when told, the station wanted to film it for a news segment, with strong suggestions that a church would look better.

After much soul searching, we agreed, and the church of choice was the Christ Church, not far from the radio station. If we limited our reception, we could also use the British Legion hall next door. It had a stage for a band, a dance floor and could put on a light meal.

We were a couple of months out, so had plenty of time, or so we thought. Randall sent a letter to his father, telling him about the marriage, with the place and the date. A week later, we had a letter back, with instructions to meet him at the Fox and Hounds, in Thurston, for Saturday dinner. Randall was not happy.

“He won’t have me in the house. That’s lovely! Thurston is about as far from Bury on the east, as his home is on the west. I expect that he doesn’t want any of his cronies seeing him with me. If we come home afterwards, it will be the early hours.”

“Are there any markets near there on a Sunday?”

He went off to research, coming back with a grin.

“There’s a regular car boot sale at Woolpit, not far away. I’ve checked, and there’s a pub, the Bull Inn, at Woolpit that does B & B.”

“We can make a weekend of it. I’ll be home around one. If you knock off around four, we should be able to get there on the main roads. We can go around Braintree and it’s only about fifty miles that way. We could come home via Ipswich. Isn’t Stonham close by as well.”

That put him in a better frame of mind, so he rang the number on the letter and left a message. On the Saturday, he took my car while I drove the MG to do my show. I got home after lunch and packed a case for the two of us to stay overnight. I loaded the MG and spent some of the afternoon doing a bit of housework and a lot of getting ready. When he got home, I gave him a cup of tea and a sandwich before he went for a shower and to put on something that showed that he was now successful. It was one of his suits that he sometimes wore to work.

We made good time on the A134, and then the A14, checking into the hotel and freshening up. We backtracked to Thurston, arriving at the Fox and Hounds about ten minutes before the due time. We sat in the bar with a drink until Randall stiffened.

“There’s the two-timing bastard!”

I looked over and saw a woman, about our age, wearing a dress that was hardly there, and too much make-up. Behind her was a florid man who looked out of sorts.

“If she’s his bit on the side, it’s no wonder he looks like he’s at deaths door.”

“But my mother’s still alive!”

“In a care home, love, and unlikely to go home again. Cut him a little bit of slack, he looks like he’s cut a bit for himself.”

That caused him to smile, which was the moment his father saw him. The woman noticed Randall and smiled back, and then saw me. Her hand went to her mouth, and she rushed over.

“My God, Carol Novac. It’s wonderful to meet you! Oh, excuse my excitement, I’ve listened to you for ages.”

“Thank you for being an avid listener. I think that your partner isn’t happy with this.”

“Oh! Old Grumpy Wumpy. He’s hardly ever happy, but he does look after me, if you know what I mean.”

“Have you worked out how many more years it will take before you wear him out?”

She giggled as he finally caught up with her. Randall put out a hand to shake.

“Hello, father. Long time since we’ve been in the same room.”

“It was you who left; I would have been happy to take you into the shop.”

“With a lot of added demands. It was never going to happen. May I introduce my fiancée, Carol Novac. Carol, this is my father, Clive Chivers.”

I held out my hand.

“I’m pleased to meet you, at last. I won’t say that I’ve heard a lot about you, because Randall doesn’t want to say too much about his early days. I believe that there should be a table reserved for us. It’s been a bit of a drive up from Cambridge.”

He didn’t take my hand. He just looked at me and his companion.

“How do you and Briony know each other. Is this a wind-up?”

Briony had a little giggle.

“We just met, Wumpy, and I like her already. Carol was all over the airwaves for several years with her music shows. She’s now with the BBC and I listen to her shows on my little DAB radio. She’s quite famous.”

“Not some gold-digger with her claws in my son, then?”

I looked him in the eyes.

“For your information, Mister Wumpy. My family has operated two big electrical stores in Colchester, which we have just sold to two national companies. I have a good job with the BBC, who actually want to film our wedding for a spot on the national news. Your son is now a well-respected Detective Sergeant in Chelmsford. We came here with an olive branch. Now, we take our seats and be polite to each other, or else we’ll be going somewhere else for our dinner.”

He looked shocked that a mere woman would call him out.

“All right, I’ll see which table we have.”

He went over to the barman to get the table. Briony grinned.

“I think it’s time that us girls freshen up.”

I followed her to the one haven in a public place. Inside, she put her bag on the shelf and turned to me.

“I have to apologise for his ways, Carol. He thinks that he’s the lord of all he surveys and that everyone will kowtow to his bullying. I’ve been with him for a couple of years but haven’t been able to get him to the altar.”

“Probably because he has a fear of breaking the law. His wife is still alive, even if she is in an aged care home with advanced dementia. The law doesn’t look kindly on bigamists.”

Her eyes went big.

“So that’s the situation, is it. I drove us here and have the keys. After the meal, I’ll be taking my leave and driving home, to clear out my wardrobe and as much of his portable wealth as I can. He’ll have to get a cab, that will cost a bomb from here.”

“Don’t overdo it, Briony. Calm down and work out how you can use this to your advantage. Talk to some of his mates, he looks as if his profile is important. You may be able to get something to stay quiet, an apartment and your own car, perhaps.”

She grinned.

“Love it! You really are the best!”

We refreshed our lipstick and went back to join the two men at the table. Randall stood to help me sit, but his father just glowered, so Randall helped Briony with her chair. She gave him a big smile and a thank you.

The meal was all right, with an undertone of tension. Briony and I kept up a light-hearted conversation, including Randall, who looked shocked when Briony said that she would be happy to be his stepmother. He looked at me and I shook my head slightly. His father calmed down after he realised that we weren’t after his money, just his attendance at our wedding, where he would be one of the minor players. I could see that it rankled him, not being top dog.

During dessert, Randall told him that he had visited his mother, and I said that she had a minute of lucidity before losing it during my last visit. His father looked sharply at Briony, who gave him a knowing smile. He seemed to shrink after that, his games exposed. I think that he had realised that the balance of power had shifted.

When we finished, Briony gave me and Randall a hug.

“I’m so glad that I’ve met you. I may pop down to give you a visit when I get my own car.”

His father looked like a different person to the one who had arrived. He did shake our hands but avoided looking directly at us. We waved them off as Briony drove the Bentley away, giving me a final wave. When they were out of sight, Randall held me tight and kissed me.

“I had been afraid of this meeting, but, in the end, I enjoyed it. What did you and Briony talk about in the loo?”

“She didn’t know that he wasn’t able to get married, so I told her where your mother is. She was about to take the car and clean him out, but I persuaded her that a little pressure on his pride may have better results.”

“It was like looking at a pricked balloon. He means nothing to me, now. Come, let’s go and see how comfy our bed is.”

“We’ll have to settle up, first. Your father has gone, and the account is still on the table.”

He was laughing so much that I had to drive us to the hotel. The bed was very good, and he was especially virile that night. The next day, we had an early breakfast and were at the boot sale not long after the gate was opened. I picked up a couple of knock-off articles of make-up. For the price, they were good for an emergency, and to be kept in my car. We stopped off at Stonham on our way and Randall picked up some MG parts that he would be able to put in the garage.

We arrived home in the late afternoon and went to the Moulsham for a meal after we had put our used clothes in the hamper. We had enjoyed the day; it had been good to get away and his father didn’t loom in the background any longer. Things moved towards our wedding day, and I was caught up in the tide of femininity that swirled around me. I was expected to look beautiful, act demurely, be gracious to all and sundry, and, above all, look as if I was really the star radio presenter for the report in the papers.

In the end, it was a lovely summer day, the church was looking good, if a bit modern for my mothers’ taste. I was in a hired gown, with Eve as my only bridesmaid. Her husband stood beside Randall, so the photos could be used easily for station publicity. Clive and Briony attended, with Briony looking more like a lady of breeding and less like a call girl. She confided that they had come down in her new Mercedes.

We had ten days in the English Riviera, Torquay. I know, not the exotic Riviera, but it was pleasant and relaxing. When we were back in harness, I sent in two applications for passports, mine now in my married name of Carol Chivers. For the rest of the year, I was doing the weekend mornings and the two of us did visits into northern England, where our special programs had been getting good comments.

In the festive season, the two of us were called on to repeat our previous involvement in the Christmas and New Year Eve shows. This time, the four of us took a taxi to an outside broadcast point on Blackfriars Bridge, where we had a view of the fireworks from Waterloo Bridge to Wapping. It was like being inside an artillery battle. We hosted until nearly one in the morning.

It was now a couple of years past the worst of the pandemic. The majority of the dead had been laid to rest and existed only in memories, with more to come from those who had survived, but only just. My father was one of those, in March. The funeral was down on the south coast, where my parents had spent their last months. Mum now had an apartment with a sea view and had made friends with a group of card playing ladies, so had decided that this was where she would stay.

Randall and I were at the point where things were just cruising. My work with the BBC was regular and, to me, becoming almost boring without the excitement that earlier years had generated. He was working steadily and knew that any promotion would be years away. It was in this period of introspection that, in April, the Supreme Court ruling threw a whole lorry load of crap into the big fan.

The decision to rule that your sex is the one assigned at birth was a shock to most people. Though it wouldn’t stop people, like me, getting reassigned, it made our lives so much harder. The radio station had a simple solution to the ruling, they just repainted the two toilet doors, with one now, ‘M-Unisex’, and the other, ‘F-Unisex’.

It made us both start to think about other avenues, and other places. We had a house that was fully paid for and appreciating. We had our holidays coming due in a few months and had a serious discussion. Randall wanted to move somewhere that would appreciate his expertise, and I didn’t mind where we went, as I would be happy to be the housewife.

We looked on-line for advertisements for trained police. There were several in America, which Randall discounted, because he said that he had a conscience. There were a few from Australia which made us think. We wanted to get away from a big city, in a country that spoke English, and drove on the left side of the road, as Randall wanted to keep the MG.

We delved deeper, eliminating Queensland because of the heat, the cyclones and the enormous rainfall. South Australia and Western Australia were out because of the horrendous summer heat. It came down to somewhere in New South Wales, preferably in the south. We both took a day off and attended a meeting with a specialist from the NSW police, in Australia House.

We came away in a new frame of mind. Randall would get help to move, we would be able to live in a flat while he underwent training in the Police Academy in Goulburn. I was given details about upgrading my electrician credentials on-line through a training organisation in Sydney, with a week with an electrician to sign me off.

He had a list of places where trained officers were needed, and there was a position for a Detective Sergeant in Nowra. It’s a town, well south of Sydney, almost the same distance to Canberra. He waxed lyrical about the places south of Nowra, with several holiday spots inside of a hundred and fifty miles. When we asked how long that would take us, he told us that we should be able to go the whole distance inside a couple of hours, which we found hard to believe.

He remarked that Randalls’ experience in Mildenhall was an advantage, as there was an airbase south of the town, the oddly named HMAS Albatross. We told him our holiday dates, and he got back to us with an itinerary inside a week. We would be landing in Canberra, after arriving through customs at Melbourne. A hire car was booked for us with a strip map to lead us to Goulburn, to talk to the officers at the NSW Police Academy.

Then, we would go to Nowra to talk to the officer in charge there. We were told that we would probably know what the result would be before we left Nowra. After that, we had a choice. Either drive up to Sydney for the flight back, or, as he suggested strongly, drive down the south coast and into Victoria to take our flight back from Melbourne. A map would be provided, with a list of places to stay on the way. If Randall was accepted, his costs would be partly reimbursed when he had been in the job for six months.

Back at home, we researched houses in the area, staggered that we could buy a nearly new three, or four, bedroom home with two bathrooms on a sizeable block for the money that we would get for our own house.

When we flew over, we stopped overnight in Canberra, went to Goulburn on the Tuesday for the interview and tour of the Academy. With Randalls’ experience, his main thing would be to study the vagaries of the local laws. On Friday, we went to Nowra and looked around the town over the weekend, staying at a hotel across from the police station.

We even looked at a couple of houses that were having open inspections. I was amazed at what we would be able to get with what we would have. With the exchange rate, their million-dollar houses equated to around half a million pounds, which was a little less that our own house was now worth. We looked at one with seven bedrooms, three toilets and a pool in that price range, on a plot twice the size of ours. On the Monday, we went to see the officer in charge. After that, we went south, stopping at a few places along the way, arriving in Melbourne on Friday.

We had seen a lot, learned a lot, and had a fair appreciation of the changes that we would go through if Randall accepted the position. One thing that was a big plus, for him, was that he would be able to bring the MG, as it was considered a classic here, and even had cheaper registration for older cars as long as he joined a club.

We arrived home and spent a lot of the rest of our holiday time talking, looking at the pictures we had taken, and wondering if Randall would get an official request to join the police in Nowra, although the officer in charge had been very positive. We went back to work, telling everyone that we had a lovely holiday, overseas, and were waiting to put a photo album together.

In September, we had a registered package with the official offer of employment. By that time, we had made up our minds. The job would start in Goulburn, with the January induction, for a three-month upgrading course. We both gave our notices the next week, to finish in the beginning of October.

The house went on the market, we collected all of our various accounts into a new one with an Australian bank with a branch in London. In December, I flew to Australia, into Sydney, and getting the shuttle bus to Nowra, with a room booked at the same hotel we had stayed in. Within a week, I had found a two-storey house on a good size plot, with four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a garage for two cars, and a pool. It wasn’t far from the CBD and looked out over the Shoalhaven River. I paid the deposit, and the bank gave me a mortgage on it, with our own money earning interest.

Randall attended his mothers’ funeral and then joined me for Christmas, and I picked him up at Sydney in the car I had bought, somewhat newer than my old hybrid. Our furniture, extra possessions, and the MG were in a container heading our way. Randall had sold my hybrid to a dealer the day before he flew out.

In the three months that he was in Goulburn, I explored Nowra and found that the main places to buy electricals were from big chain stores. I completed my papers to be a registered electrician and looked around for a site where I could open up a shop, selling electrical goods to the newer residents of this thriving place. By Easter, Randall was working out of the Nowra Police Station, and I had opened up Newmans of Nowra, operating out of a leased commercial property not far away, with a school-leaver manning the phones and offering a personal service for your TV and electricals. I had only a small range but had computer links to show more. I had aimed at the most popular price range for new householders and guaranteed installation.

I had placed regular adverts in the local paper, as well as on the community radio. By the end of the year, we were doing very nicely. The rest of our things had arrived, and the MG was now used to see the countryside. It sat beside my own MG; a Chinese made hatchback. We had made the biggest move and didn’t regret it. On top of that, I was now a volunteer at the community station, doing a half-hour morning show called ‘Anything Goes with Carol’, sponsored by Newmans of Nowra.

Mum came to live with us before the next Christmas, and we still had a room for Briony when she visited us, spending some of her husbands’ money. Clive was unable to fly, due to a myriad of ailments brought about by too much drink and not enough vegetables. Somehow, I don’t think she cared.

They say that a change is as good as a rest. In our case, we had moved twice, both times improving our life. The first time improved our jobs, but the second improved the quality of our lives, in a near-new house, with a pool that we used quite often, and an entertaining area which was a second home for a lot of the police force.

I had gone from being a national celebrity, with a small circle of friends, to being just a popular person within a self-contained town, with a lot of friends. With so many of them in the police, we ‘Ain’t Misbehaving.’

Marianne Gregory © 2026

Keep an eye out for ‘Great Southern Land’ when I finish it