It was 20 years ago today

that I tracked down a copy of Bax's 3rd Symphony. Quite the elusive recording at the time though it's easier to get these days.

I discovered Bax in late 1974 via his 1st Symphony. Dark romantic music that totally blew me away. I can still remember standing in Williamstown Cemetery on a cold winters evening in 1975 as fog rolled in, hearing that symphony playing in my head. I liked his 2nd Symphony even more. By the time I got to his 7th (skipping the unavailable 3rd) I was, and still am, a confirmed Bax enthusiast.

So on this day, 20 years ago, my first wife and I married. A simple wedding at the registry office which was, at the time, in the old Royal Mint building on William Street, Melbourne. In 2002 the registry office was at the old Queen Victoria Hospital building (the part that's still standing). I know that because that's where my current wife and I married. Whether or not the registry office is still there I can't say. I can say that registry wedddings have changed a lot in the intervening 17 or 18 years; the first one was almost an assembly line production whilst the later one had much more input from us.

I wish I still had a photo of that wedding. We wore matching socks, one iridescent blue and one iridescent red each. I wore a suit and she quite a fetching dress.

After the marriage ceremony we were expected at my sisters house for an afternoon of jollity and good cheer. But in the meanwhile there we were in the city, a couple of hundred metres from the ABC shop and I knew they'd just received stock of a newly released recording of the aforementioned symphony. So I asked Robin, who was driving, if he'd swing by the shop which had just relocated from Collins Street to the Commonwealth Bank Building and let me race in and get a copy. As I left the car I remember commenting 'We're just married and already I'm leaving you'.

New vinyl copy of the symphony secured we repaired to my sisters house.

That marriage lasted 2 years. Well, we'd been living together for 6 years at the time of the wedding so I count it as 8 years in total. For me, good times. For Sue? Well, we got divorced didn't we? But we're still mates (in the Australian colloquial sense of the word) and she has been an honoured guest at all 3 of my weddings; the first as the bride, the second as the Matron of Honour and the third as a friend. If I'm still blogging on February 26th next I'll tell the story of her Matroning...