On Christmas Day last year, I was feeling so tearful that I put on my coat, knowing I had to get out of the apartment. I can’t even remember where I walked to, but I must have been wandering around Norwich for a couple of hours – only everything was closed for the bank holiday.
![[Senior man sitting on bench in garden]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/GettyImages-136104625.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
At one point, I sat down on a bench in the local gardens and just let my emotions overcome me. Extremely lonely. That’s how I’ve felt every December 25 since my childhood sweetheart and wife of 61 incredible years, Jillian, passed away. I used to love Christmas Day, but it’s not a day I look forward to anymore. I’d describe it as a sad time now.
![[Gordon: I spent Christmas Day alone after my wife died - then I found an alternative]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_234107512-3d19-e1734951973416.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=592)
I first met Jillian – or Jilly, to me – when we were at school together. This was only brief because, a little while later, she moved to Paris because her dad, who was a Major in the Army, was posted there. She spent the rest of her school years at a very posh boarding school, but she asked my grandmama, who I was living with at the time, if I could write to her.
![[True love is enduring]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/GettyImages-1165981555.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
That’s where our story really started. She was lovely. Although her dad initially wasn’t right sure whether we should get married, as I came from a working-class family and there was a big divide between the rich and the poor at that time, I won him over.
![[Gordon: I spent Christmas Day alone after my wife died - then I found an alternative]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_234107510-7d71-e1734948511169.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
Jilly and I tied the knot in 1960 – I was 20, and she was 21. It was the best day. We shared things, you see. There was no ‘this is mine’ and ‘that’s yours’, there was only ‘us’ and ‘ours’. But our life together didn’t come without its challenges. Not long after we were pronounced husband and wife, I was called up for National Service.
![[Senior man's hands holding a smart phone]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/GettyImages-888916992.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
