After the reception and the honeymoon we started the final planning to move from St Albans to Wolverhampton. Jane's parents found us a rented flat about a mile from where they lived and they paid the first three months rent for us as part of our wedding present.
We had both given in our notice at the school in St Albans so once we had worked through that we were free to leave. We both were given good references and I think that helped us when we started looking for new jobs.
Saying goodbye to Mrs H was the hardest part. I had lived with her for about 7 years and I knew I would miss her friendship and her wise advice. I wrote to her every two weeks from the day I left St Albans until she died a few years later. It was quite a shock when I got a phone call from one of her neighbours with this sad news. Jane and I went to her funeral and I was one of the people allowed to carry her coffin into the crematorium chapel. It was nice that some of her former lodgers had been tracked down and that they were able to come to her funeral and the wake. I still think about Mrs H quite often and remember all the years and cups of tea we shared.
A friend of ours gave us a lift to Wolverhampton in a van he owned and he helped us unpack our few possessions into our new home. After a pub tea he drove off back to Hertfordshire and Jane and I started our new life together.
The first few weeks of job hunting were a total failure. We would leave the house about 8:00 AM and we spent the day visiting possible employers. We both wanted a change from what we had done in the past but without experience people just didn't want to take the risk. So in the end we only looked at catering (Jane) and school (me) jobs. By chance we both got a job the same day. I arrived home excited because I found a job only to find Jane bursting to tell me her good news before I could even speak!
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