Diamond wedding: Colin and Jessie Mailer recall 60 happy years in Polmont and Grangemouth

The bride was 25 minutes late for their first date on September 19, 1958. The reason has been forgotten in the mists of time. Four years later the groom was 25 minutes late for their wedding.

Fishing boats passing through the Forth and Clyde Canal at Bainsford delayed the limousine booked to pick him up, and then, once aboard, more fishing boats delayed the the anxious groom en route to Polmont North Parish Church for the ceremony conducted by the Rev. Hugh Talman.

Colin Mailer, Bainsford-born and raised, and his wife, Jessie Sadler, born in Polmont and brought up in Langton Road, Laurieston, laugh now at those minor hiccups as they mark their diamond wedding anniversary today, December 1.

They met in passing in Bainsford some years earlier. That was when trainee journalist Colin, who began his newspaper career on The Falkirk Herald in 1956, pay one shilling an hour, made his way up David’s Loan each morning to catch a bus to the Callendar Riggs en route to Linlithgow where he worked for several years - and returned many years later as editor. He remembers his 10-journey weekly ticket from Falkirk to Linlithgow Cross cost all of 7/6s in the mid-1950s.

Jessie worked in the British Aluminium Company’s offices in David’s Loan with their first real opportunity to speak to each other arising at a Youth Fellowship dedication service one Sunday evening in Falkirk’s West Church. Jessie was President of Polmont North Church’s Youth Fellowship with Colin occupying a similar position with the then Graham’s Road Church Fellowship.

They discovered one common interest which was to play a big part in their lives thereafter – Jessie was a Leader in the 2nd Polmont Company’s Life Boy team while Colin, later to be Captain of the 2nd Polmont Company, was a Staff-Sergeant in the 4th Falkirk Company, The Boys’ Brigade, attached to Graham’s Road Church.

That BB association remains. Colin has now notched up 75 years in the movement, all of it within Falkirk and District Battalion, serving as Captain of 2nd Polmont Company, then Battalion President from 1982-87 and Hon. President from 1993 to date. Jessie, for her part, was heavily involved, initially as officer-in-charge of the 2nd Polmont Company’s Junior Section and latterly training new officers, acting as the Battalion’s Training Officer for some years and qualifying as a national training officer with students from all over the United Kingdom coming to Carronvale, the movement’s training headquarters and now Scottish HQ in Larbert, for weekend or week-long residential courses.

Their first home in Oban was one they remember fondly, a company house with a difference, a third-floor, seven-apartment flat on the Corran Esplanade, above The Oban Times office where Colin was a staff journalist. They dubbed it “the penthouse”. The rooms were large and hard to heat, with very high ceilings. Coal, they remember, cost half as much again in Oban, which offered a lesson in household budgeting learned very quickly. Their “winter quarters”, actually a small, spare room, became an easy-to-heat lounge. Their summer lounge, the largest room in the house, enjoyed bay-window panoramic views over Oban Bay and the islands of Kerrera, Lismore and Mull.

When living in Oban Jessie worked in a lawyer’s office. She joined the local Choral Society and formed a netball club to continue her earlier adventures with the BA netball club.

Colin played football in Oban, became secretary of the Oban and District Amateur Football Association, and enjoyed his golf in the town. This week he recalled one evening game when he and his golf partner, a colleague on The Oban Times, drove off the 18th tee at 11.25 at the height of mid- summer.

Colin laughs at the memory. “There was another couple behind us. How they could see to play to the 18th green at Glencruitten and putt out I don’t know.”

Colin’s work as a journalist on The Oban Times took him all over the West Highlands and Island with his monthly stints reporting meetings of Argyll County Council in Oban, Lochgiilphead or Dunoon as well as Town Council meetings in Oban, Lochgilphead, Inveraray, and Tobermory where, when official business was over, the Provost, none other than Bobby McLeod, the celebrated Scottish country dance band leader, invited councillors, officials - and Colin – to join him socially elsewhere in the Mishnish Hotel where the meetings were held. Why? For a short ceilidh with the Provost, who owned the hotel, leading on the accordion.

Sometimes, if covering jobs in the Outer Hebrides, Colin was obliged to travel by train from Oban to Glasgow, stay overnight in the city and fly from the former Renfrew Airport to Benbecula to pick up a hired car to enable him to reach his destination, whether it be North or South Uist, or Benbecula itself.

The return journey from Lochboisdale to Oban was by sea, a 12-hour journey at that time aboard the Claymore with the intrepid reporter expected to be back at his desk within 10 minutes of the boat’s arrival. Many years were to pass before Jessie visited these places – on holiday.

During his newspaper career which took him to most countries in Europe as well as the Middle East and the Far East, Colin, in common with most journalists, occasionally rubbed shoulders, sometimes literally, with the great and the good. He’s been told often enough he should write a book about his experiences ranging from being the only reporter to interview Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in Oban on the very day (June 5, 1963) Cabinet minister John Profumo finally admitted his involvement with West End hostesses Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice Davies, to being thanked by world-famous tenor Luciano Pavarotti in August 1997 for averting a high-speed car crash in Sienna.

That was when the singer’s chauffeur drove recklessly fast in a narrow thoroughfare not realising that several back-packers, emerging from an alleyway, were but a few steps away from running into the path of the car. Colin, who was on foot on the opposite side of the alleyway, took a step forward, roared “Stop” and raised his hand to halt the inevitable. As the car made an emergency stop he recognised the celebrity sitting in the front seat. The big man rolled down the window, smiled, and said: “Grazie, senor, grtazie” before the car drove off.

During Colin’s year in office as national president of the Guild of British Newspaper Editors in 1992 he underwent major surgery and during his long convalescence felt called to the ministry. Following his admission to training, and several years of study he was ordained to the non-stipendiary auxiliary ministry of the Church of Scotland in 1996 while still working as an editor. He put his last paper to press in 1999, 18 months after Jessie stopped being a doctor’s receptionist at Meadowbank Clinic, Polmont.

Since then they have enjoyed their retirement, relishing cruises to the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, and travelling to Lake Garda and Venice in Italy more than a few times. Colin is still involved in his church work as well as enjoying his active membership of Grangemouth Rotary Club. Jessie was a member of Grangemouth Choral Society for many years and helps with the Rotary Ladies’ group.

“I have never been without Jessie’s unstinting support, encouragement and wise counsel during our marriage,” said Colin this week. “We have always worked well together,” Jessie added.

The couple, who live now in Grangemouth following 46 years in Polmont, will be saying thanks to each other quietly today when they celebrate with close family over a meal in a local restaurant. Italian, of course.