Courting continued

I turned 20 in December 1970. We had been going out for about 7 months. T gave me a bottle of 'Le Dix' perfume by Balenciaga (I still have the lid of the bottle in my undies drawer) and a gold Oreton coin purse which I use in evening bags when we go out.

T had Christmas at my place on 24th December and I spent the day with his family on 25th. I wore my dirndl (national costume) which impressed his parents. Both families had lavish meals and we enjoyed ourselves.

I had just finished my 2nd year at Uni and had another 2 years to go. We didn't even consider living together because it just wasn't the done thing but we did start talking about getting married once I had finished Uni and was working.

T's mother went to Austria to work. Life became easier because my parents had accepted T. Fred started coming to our place regularly. He and my parents started going to concerts together. I had Uni and my jobs and T had work and study at night so we were busy but were still able to spend plenty of time together. We used to drive our families crazy because if we weren't together we would be on the phone - no mobiles in those days, just one phone per household set in a public area in the house.

T had started bringing me flowers every week - huge luscious red carnations with white stripes, or white with red stripes.

In 1971 I turned 21 and T gave me a beautiful teardrop shaped amethyst pendant which I still love. His parents gave me a leather covered jewellery box and my parents threw me a party which was catered.

That year Fred was invited to my parents' house for Christmas Eve. We followed our usual traditions where the lounge room was off limits until after dinner. Vati went into the lounge room and lit the candles on the Christmas tree and on all the ornaments, put on the Christmas record and turned off the electric lights before we were allowed into the room. Fred had tears in his eyes when he came into the festive setting. He hadn't experienced anything like that for many years since he had been in Europe and he was exceedingly touched.

T turned 21 in the February of the following year. He is 10 weeks younger than me ( it was one of my mother's objections. She said that husbands should be older than their wives). I bought him a silver pocket watch and my parents got him a beautiful leather bound and gold monogrammed book in which he was to write his poetry (T is a very skilful poet). The book is still pristine and completely empty! This is not to say that T hasn't continued writing poetry. He believes his indecipherable handwriting would ruin the book.

Now that we were both 21 we decided that it was time to become engaged. My parents no longer objected, Fred was very much in favour and T's mother was overseas and didn't have any say. T very traditionally asked my father for my hand. Mutti and I knew what was happening in the lounge room and got the celebratory champagne ready. It was super exciting. Vati agreed that T could have my hand as well as the rest of me.......but jokingly said that I was such a good daughter that I was worth at least 25 pigs a la New Guinea bride price. We finished the evening jovially and the official engagement announcement duly appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald on the following Saturday morning which was 26th August 1972. That morning T asked Fred if he had looked at the 'births, deaths and marriages' as we had not told him that the announcement would be in the paper. His immediate panicked reaction, 'who's died?'

We didn't have any money for a diamond ring and decided on the German tradition of buying wedding rings and wearing them on our right hands and then putting them on the left hand when we actually married.

T's mother came back from Vienna not long after our engagement to see if she and Fred could get on better. She didn't like the fact that I didn't have what she considered a 'proper' engagement ring so gave me a lovely amethyst ring that she didn't often wear. I was chuffed and wore the ring proudly. T's parents still didn't get on so after a few months his mother went back to Vienna.