Life’s Tapestry of Love: Mornington-By-Mere

Nick Legg and Kelly Boddington were both “sweet sixteen and never been kissed” the last time they met and before that they had been the best of friends since they could crawl.

The Legg’s and the Boddington’s both had farms near the hamlet of Fallowacres, which was as near as damn it the center point of the Vale, though only geographically.

The Legg family were poultry farmers and lived on Dryfield Farm and they also ran Legg’s Farm Shop in Mornington and had done for several decades.

While the Boddingtons were pig farmers at Saddleback Farm as well as owning a number of butcher’s shops in and around the Vale including Mornington.

So Nick and Kelly grew up on neighbouring farms and were inseparable but when Kelly left school at 16 she had to go and start her apprenticeship in the butchery trade and had to spend two years at the shop in Childean.

Nick meanwhile started working full time in the farm shop in Mornington and for over two years they hadn’t seen each other.

There was never anything between them other than friendship or kinship, but they were so close that it would have felt unnatural to do anything else.

In fact they were almost like brothers because Kelly was such a tomboy and to be perfectly honest they were not really interested in the opposite sex, they were far too busy having fun, roaming the woods, either on foot or on mountain bikes.

They would go fishing, climbing trees or skinny dipping in the pond.

They had a wonderful childhood but nothing lasts forever and they had to grow up and Kelly went to Childean and Nick moved to Mornington.

When the Mornington Estate exercised its option to purchase Mornington Field back from the MOD it also acquired all the buildings and infrastructure on the airfield itself as well as 29 houses in the village, formally used as quarters for military personnel.

There was an acute shortage of family properties in the village and when they became available priority was given to local people or people with ties to the area or those who worked in some capacity for the estate such as agriculture and the brewery.

Which was how Helena Legg, a 48 year old Widow, who ran the farm shop with her daughter Ruby and nephew Nick came to get a house in Mornington.

And from the moment Helena moved in she felt at home and it was so nice to have somewhere of their own to call home.

Living at the farm with the rest of the family had its pluses but privacy wasn’t one of them.

She enjoyed her job very much but the journey from Fallowacres to Mornington every morning and back again each night made the days very long indeed and she found it was quite wearing so moving to the village was a godsend.

Nick was an orphan and Helena had raised him as her own since he was 11 and he loved his Aunt like she was his mother in fact he always thought of her as his mother.

He was tall and gangly with untidy yellow hair and for two years he was happy enough living there and the job was fine and then just after his 18^th birthday everything changed.

Everything changed in Nick Legg’s life one morning as he was loading produce onto the Brewery van with Hannah Hill ready for her to do her deliveries.

“Oy!” a voice shouted

“Oy you, the stick insect with the blonde hair” it said loudly.

“They can’t mean me” Hannah said tugging at her ginger locks.

“I think you might be right” Nick said “Just ignore them and they might go away”

“Oh no I won’t” the voice said much closer

Nick braced himself and turned around to give the loud mouth a dose of their own medicine, but when he did he was struck dumb because the loud mouth was Kelly Boddington.

He would have recognised her anywhere, unruly black hair and no makeup.

She was a few inches taller and she was rounder in a few places but she was still recognisable and still a tomboy.

“Kelly” he said and hugged her and she hugged him back bear hug style.

“Hello bro” she said

After a long sustained hug Nick said

“Let me just finish loading Hannah and you can tell me what you’re doing in Mornington”

It turned out that as of that Morning they both lived in Military Row, Nick at number 4 with his Aunt Helena and cousin Ruby and Kelly at number 7 with her 4 older siblings and her lonely widowed father.

“So how long are you staying in Mornington?” Nick asked

“Well that depends” she replied enigmatically

“On what?” Nick persisted

“Certain things that are as yet beyond my control” she said

“What does that mean?” he asked

“It means that you will know when I know”

“Fair enough” he said knowing when he was beaten “When do you start work?”

“Not until Monday” Kelly replied

“Great, I finish at lunchtime” He said

He always had Friday afternoons off as he always opened up in the mornings so his Aunt didn’t have to start too early.

“And you know what today is?” he asked

“The start of the fishing season” she said enthusiastically

“So do you fancy it?” he asked

“I’d love to, but my tackle is still back at the farm”

“Not a problem, I’ve got plenty” he said

So the brotherly pair spent the warm June afternoon on the banks of the Mornington Mere and fished together for the first time in more than two years but it was not to be the last time by a long way.

Over the weeks that followed they did a lot of catching up and Nick thought it was just like the old days although Kelly hoped it wouldn’t be altogether like the old days.

Also while they fished and reminisced they formulated a plan to do a spot of matchmaking.

Kelly was worried about her widowed father James and Nick had expressed concern about his Aunt Helena.

They were two very lonely people who deserved a little happiness in their lives so they planned to give it to them in the form of each other.

In their naivety it seemed the most logical thing to do.

Helena Legg was 48 years old and had raised her daughter Ruby on her own since she was quite small and Nick since he was 11.

She was content however with her life, especially since moving to Mornington, and the business was doing well, so she was quite satisfied.

Helena wore her straw coloured hair tied back which gave the impression she was a bit severe though nothing could be further from the truth.

When it came to her mode of dress she always wore practical working clothes which she wore most of the time because she was always working.

She wasn’t interested in attracting a partner because she didn’t think she could live with the disappointment.

James Boddington was a no nonsense kind of man, a practical person, in fact “what you see, is what you get” was very much the type of man and he was.

He wasted no time on frills and fripperies, which was probably where Kelly got it from.

His normal apparel was a white shirt, sleeves turned up, black trousers, and stout boots, well-polished.

He wore his grey streaked dark hair short and well groomed.

Like most Boddingtons, he was a good looking man, clean and presentable but he didn’t tend toward the colourful, he favoured black or grey in all things.

James, like all the Boddingtons was a butcher and was also knocking on the door of his fiftieth birthday and he was semi-retired and that was as retired as he wanted to get, he was lonely enough as it was.

They were not strangers to one another they were both born and raised within a mile of each other and indeed they liked one another but they were not looking for any romantic entanglements at their ages with anyone least of all each other.

Kelly knew her dad still missed her mum and she did too but she was determined to get him back into the world of the living if it was the last thing she did.

But James thought he would be betraying his wife’s memory if he found someone else, if he even entertained the thought it would be a betrayal of her memory.

Kelly was 10 when the cancer finally took her mum, and it was her friend Nick who got her through it.

The brotherly pair had made the decision to intervene in their parents love lives while fishing in the Mere.

Technically Helena was not Nick’s parent but he always thought she was.

Although “love lives” wasn’t really an accurate description as they had no love in their lives save for what they held for their children.

However having made the decision they had absolutely no idea how to proceed.

James and Helena got on very well together and they had similar outlooks on life and they were both very hardworking and they were both devoted to their families.

They always interacted well together on the occasions they came together which were few and far between which was why Nick and Kelly volunteered them both to help at the Summer Fete in the Mornington Manor grounds.

They worked on the tombola stall together all day so it was not an unmitigated disaster but it didn’t bear any fruit.

In between their rather inept efforts at matchmaking Nick and Kelly spent much of their leisure time fishing, which was when they were at their most content.

Nick’s cousin Ruby was marrying Kelly’s brother Allen in September so that became the target date for something meaningful to have happened between them.

For the August Bank Holiday they bought them both tickets for a coach trip to see the Sharpington Day Parade.

But it was all to no avail but there was at least the upcoming nuptials upon which they hung all their hopes because as Mother of the Bride and Father of the groom they had to spend a lot of time on the planning.

Helena wasn’t stupid and she knew exactly what the Nick and Kelly were up to, and although she hadn’t discussed it with him she assumed James must have been aware of it as well.

She was quite flattered by their efforts, and it was quite sweet that they cared so much, but she wasn’t interested in anything other than getting through the wedding plans and after that friendship would suffice, she had no interest in the romantic at her age.

James was also well aware of the hapless plot to hook him up with Helena, whom he liked very much, but only as a friend.

And he had very much enjoyed spending time with her planning the wedding and doing the other things their offspring had engineered them into but that was as far as it went.

The more that Nick and Kelly threw their parents together the further apart they seemed to get.

So as they got closer and closer to the big family wedding they pretty much gave up trying and spent more and more of their spare time on the water’s edge, or just hanging out.

In fact they spent every spare minute together which was why it came as a surprise on the day before the wedding when he suggested.

“I thought we would try fishing on the Brooke today, there’s a good spot up past the brewery”

“I can’t go” she replied sulkily

“Why not?”

“I have to go to Mazzone’s and get my hair done” she replied

“Bummer” he remarked

When Nick finished work at lunchtime as he always did on a Friday he picked up his rod and tackle and went across the road and then along the path beside the River Brooke and walked along to the spot he had mentioned to Kelly.

Sitting there on his own he went through the motions but his heart wasn’t really in it without Kelly, he really missed his “Bro” so he packed up and went home.

Later that night was the night before the big day there was a big family meal at the Old Mill Inn when the Legg and Boddington clans came together for a pre-nuptial celebration meal.

And he found himself looking forward to it a lot more than he had expected to.

But that was certainly more than just the anticipation of a celebratory family get together.

Later on Friday night, which was the night before the big day, there was a big family meal at the Old Mill Inn when the Legg and Boddington clans came together for a pre-nuptial celebration meal.

Nick and Kelly as usual gravitated towards each other.

“Hi Bro” she said

“Hey” he said “neat hair”

“It makes me look too much like a girl” she moaned

“But you are a girl” he pointed out

“I didn’t think you’d noticed” she said and before he could respond they were directed to take their seats and they sat together.

Once they were sat Kelly said

“How was the fishing?”

“Boring” he replied “it wasn’t the same without you Kel”

Along with the meal a considerable amount of alcohol was consumed but no blood was spilled so it was considered to be a good night.

The next morning Kelly was up extra early so she could get in the bathroom first, she had a lot to do.

When she left the bathroom she started banging on doors to get everyone else on the move.

“Come on Dad it’s time to get ready” she said outside his bedroom door but when she got no answer she opened the door and walked in.

“Come on Dad it’s… Oh my God, I’ll come back later”

It appeared by the writhing couple beneath the duvet that Nick and Kelly had achieved their target for something meaningful to have occurred between their respective parents by Ruby’s wedding day, without even knowing how they did it.

Nick was at St Winifred’s Church early as he was an usher and was on duty by the door when the bridal party arrived

He stood with his mouth open as he watched the procession and he got his first glimpse of Kelly in a lavender bridesmaids dress.

The bride Ruby looked stunning but she paled into insignificance in Nicks eyes when compared to Kelly.

Which was when his enduring brotherly love towards her turned to romantic love.

Stood before the altar Ruby Legg stood beside her husband to be, Allen Boddington, she was 26 and was a pretty girl, tall and willowy with yellow hair but in her wedding gown she looked beautiful and wore an appropriate blush on her cheeks.

Though not as flushed as those of James and Helena when Kelly caught them in flagrante.

After the ceremony the happy couple and the guests assembled in the Church grounds for the photographs and as soon as they arrived outside Nick gravitated to where Kelly was standing.

“Wow you look lovely” he said

“Thank you” she replied and blushed a little at the compliment.

“I’m speechless” he uttered