Private CW Mackie, number 22023420, was discharged from National Service on 23 February 1950. He went to live with his parents in Golders Green, London, and resumed work for the Civil Service. He joined the Department of Customs and Excise, where he ultimately spent his entire working career. He met the woman who would become his future wife, Pamela Shirley Wood, in the queues to the summer Promenade concerts in 1951. They attended together almost every week through that Summer, with Colin walking Pam back to Waterloo station (Suburban line) after each one. After a break-up in April 1952, absence made the heart grow fonder. They inevitably met again in the 1952 Summer Promenade concert queues, and rapidly made things up. While Colin was on holiday in Cornwall that August the two corresponded daily. Soon after he returned to London he “popped the question” and was accepted. The ‘Scene’, as per Colin’s diary: “Sept 8th (Monday) at 10.45pm approx. South Bank, in front of the Festival Hall. A darkened bench.” (The ‘South Bank’ of course refers to the River Thames in London, and the Royal Festival Hall located there is a favoured Proms concert venue). They visited the Strand jewellers on Saturday 13th to choose a ring, had tea at the Strand Lyons (a 1950s café chain) and then of course made their way to another Proms concert. In Colin’s letters, kept very safe is a small sliced-off triangular corner of an envelope. On it, Pam wrote the words, in small writing: “May you always have happy memories of September 8th 1952. I love you now and always, Colin. Your very own Pam xxx” Their love for each other shines through the letters they wrote from 1952 until their wedding, planned to take place two years later in 1954. Colin kept all of them. Colin and Pam had outwardly very different childhoods: Pam was an orphan by the time she was 12, her father passing of TB when she was 7 and her mother murdered in 1941. She was brought up by her very strict grandmother for the rest of the war, attending a series of convent schools where the nuns were equally strict. As an orphan Pam always valued family ties, and kept in lifelong close touch with the family members that she did have, such as her aunt Elsie and uncles Horace and Vernon. Colin on the other hand was always surrounded by family, however had missed his father for a number of years during the war. Perhaps as a result he was somewhat critical of family, until he met Pam. The two, in the best way, seemed to help each other appreciate life and what they had, rather than dwell on resentment for what they did not have. Such was the basis for what became 44 years of happy and successful marriage. The two were married in the Parish Church of St John, Blackheath in London on June 12, 1954. After they married they moved into the house that was to become Colin’s home for 50 years: 18 Vale Drive in Barnet, north London. Colin had had ideas of staying in Blackheath, but early in their engagement Pam soon dissuaded him of that idea. However, the house in Barnet was not one that Pam or Colin found through their own house-hunting. Quite the opposite – Sid and Myrtle, veterans of hunting for accommodation that they were, took on that task and scoured London for a suitable and affordable residence. After several near misses, they came across Vale Drive, and settled on it for its close location to the northern line Underground station into town and large garden. It also happened to be the former “show” house in the road when first built in the 1930s. Sid and Myrtle missed few tricks. So, for the grand price of £2,500, Pam and Colin had their married home. Children of course followed, with Shirley born in April 1957, Heather in December 1958, and Brian a (reputedly happy) accident in December 1965. All the children were born in Barnet and grew up at the familiar house in Vale Drive.