If you ever need a stranger to sing at your wedding

Friday: Doncaster. Train arriving on time, we wander around the !Nu! shopping centre which now doubles as a Transport Interchange as you can now go straight from the train station to get to the shopping experience without the need to go under a stinky tunnel. As far as shopping centres go, it is a nice one, airy and bright with a Nu Debenhams, Waterstone's (ah! How I longed for a bookshop when I was a Sensitive Teen) and – I almost choke on my wedges (a Donny specialty: deep fried roast potatoes) - a Starbucks. I really can't believe there's anyone in Doncaster prepared to pay £2.50 for a frothy coffee: Donny has traditionally been the town that chain stores avoid – there wasn't even a McDonalds til the 90s. Obviously, this is all bad, Doncaster will soon look like everywhere else which is, I suspect, what the town burghers want. The old market may be doomed, until the next recession anyway. Given Starbucks' predilection for only opening where a demand for gourmet coffee already exists, I imagine there were a few bribes going on, something else Doncaster isn't unknown for.

This is the problem – I want Doncaster to stay crap and cheap with Wilkinsons (as the high end consumer experience) and Cooplands (a cheaper version of Greggs) and cafes with signs saying: “Probably the cheapest and best place in Doncaster” and the Nu posh coffee shops offering spaghetti on toast (£1.90) as a dining option. I need it to remain in 1991 so I can gage how far I've come.

Mum comes to pick us up and we go back to meet my sister and Nu boyfriend for Indian takeaway and ice cream in the garden surrounded by candles and the cat begging for tikka scraps. 

Saturday: We are here for Helena's wedding, a schoolfriend from both primary and secondary education and, more importantly, the school orchestra. The wedding is in the church I was forced into during school and I manage to keep the same level of attention to the prayers as when I was 10. Jin, resplendent in bridesmaid’s dress and Amy Winehouse hair, admits that she didn’t say the Lord’s Prayer either. Sarah and Mark drive us to the reception which is on the farm where Hol grew up, and which is owned by William Hague’s aunty, the one who won the lottery, but Hague himself isn’t here.

After the photos and the meal and the speeches and the toastings, the newlyweds go up to beautifully play a tune that Jim wrote.

At Christmas, when I was vulnerable from Christmas cheer and some beer, Hol asked if I would "do a turn" and so I've had 8 months to prepare for this and I suddenly realise what a terrible, terrifying prospect it is. Firstly I've never sung like this before, in Fosca yes, with a band, at karaoke yes with the words in front of me and people clapping if you can at least hold a tune. Yep, I can hold a tune but I know my limitations. Secondly, all of Helena and Jim's friends are musicians, composers and music teachers. They talk about Fauré over the vegetarian meal. This is not your average wedding crowd. If you dropped a bomb here, all of the North West peripatetic music service would be wiped out. Extra scary is the impression I was under that everyone would be "doing a turn", not just 5 of us. I down a couple of glasses of the toasting drink and it goes ok, not least of all because Hol's new husband plays the accompaniment perfectly, although i totally wimp out of hitting the final high note.

Afterwards, my talented schoolfriends do “I can't help falling in love with you” and “500 miles”, and after that I suddenly relax and dance to the Pogues on the wedding disco laptop and drink a little more and admire the night sky and drink a little more and gossip and talk about Camera Obscura vs the Hermit Crabs with Andy and dance a little more and ring up my mother and ask her to drive us home because the two mile walk back to the village - which seemed a good plan at the time - now seems undoable and there are hugs and promises all round before leaving. Maybe I like weddings after all.

Before:

 

After:

If you ever need a stranger to sing at your wedding

Friday: Doncaster. Train arriving on time, we wander around the !Nu! shopping centre which now doubles as a Transport Interchange as you can now go straight from the train station to get to the shopping experience without the need to go under a stinky tunnel. As far as shopping centres go, it is a nice one, airy and bright with a Nu Debenhams, Waterstone's (ah! How I longed for a bookshop when I was a Sensitive Teen) and – I almost choke on my wedges (a Donny specialty: deep fried roast potatoes) - a Starbucks. I really can't believe there's anyone in Doncaster prepared to pay £2.50 for a frothy coffee: Donny has traditionally been the town that chain stores avoid – there wasn't even a McDonalds til the 90s. Obviously, this is all bad, Doncaster will soon look like everywhere else which is, I suspect, what the town burghers want. The old market may be doomed, until the next recession anyway. Given Starbucks' predilection for only opening where a demand for gourmet coffee already exists, I imagine there were a few bribes going on, something else Doncaster isn't unknown for.

This is the problem – I want Doncaster to stay crap and cheap with Wilkinsons (as the high end consumer experience) and Cooplands (a cheaper version of Greggs) and cafes with signs saying: “Probably the cheapest and best place in Doncaster” and the Nu posh coffee shops offering spaghetti on toast (£1.90) as a dining option. I need it to remain in 1991 so I can gage how far I've come.

Mum comes to pick us up and we go back to meet my sister and Nu boyfriend for Indian takeaway and ice cream in the garden surrounded by candles and the cat begging for tikka scraps. 

Saturday: We are here for Helena's wedding, a schoolfriend from both primary and secondary education and, more importantly, the school orchestra. The wedding is in the church I was forced into during school and I manage to keep the same level of attention to the prayers as when I was 10. Jin, resplendent in bridesmaid’s dress and Amy Winehouse hair, admits that she didn’t say the Lord’s Prayer either. Sarah and Mark drive us to the reception which is on the farm where Hol grew up, and which is owned by William Hague’s aunty, the one who won the lottery, but Hague himself isn’t here.

After the photos and the meal and the speeches and the toastings, the newlyweds go up to beautifully play a tune that Jim wrote.

At Christmas, when I was vulnerable from Christmas cheer and some beer, Hol asked if I would "do a turn" and so I've had 8 months to prepare for this and I suddenly realise what a terrible, terrifying prospect it is. Firstly I've never sung like this before, in Fosca yes, with a band, at karaoke yes with the words in front of me and people clapping if you can at least hold a tune. Yep, I can hold a tune but I know my limitations. Secondly, all of Helena and Jim's friends are musicians, composers and music teachers. They talk about Fauré over the vegetarian meal. This is not your average wedding crowd. If you dropped a bomb here, all of the North West peripatetic music service would be wiped out. Extra scary is the impression I was under that everyone would be "doing a turn", not just 5 of us. I down a couple of glasses of the toasting drink and it goes ok, not least of all because Hol's new husband plays the accompaniment perfectly, although i totally wimp out of hitting the final high note.

Afterwards, my talented schoolfriends do “I can't help falling in love with you” and “500 miles”, and after that I suddenly relax and dance to the Pogues on the wedding disco laptop and drink a little more and admire the night sky and drink a little more and gossip and talk about Camera Obscura vs the Hermit Crabs with Andy and dance a little more and ring up my mother and ask her to drive us home because the two mile walk back to the village - which seemed a good plan at the time - now seems undoable and there are hugs and promises all round before leaving. Maybe I like weddings after all.

Before:

 

After: