Wings in Love: A Wing Cousin Makes a Connection back to England

By Dan Douglas

In January 1969, I was sitting in the staff room at a secondary school in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana in southern Africa, waiting for the first staff meeting of the term to begin. I was a brand-new Peace Corps volunteer assigned to teach English and history at the school.  

I was chatting with the other teachers, mostly Motswana and British, when the headmaster, a not-very-dour Scot named Ian Russell, asked, “Where’s Miss Brand?”  No one knew. 

So, he got on the phone and said, “The staff meeting starts in two minutes!”  

Three or four minutes later, a lovely, panting, rosy-cheeked young woman dashed in. 

I can’t say it was love at first sight, though I was intrigued. And as far as Miss Brand was concerned, I was just another face in the crowd. 

I later found out that Felicity Brand was also a volunteer teacher, with International Voluntary Service, a European forerunner of the Peace Corps. She was from London, was in her second year of service, and – importantly – was single. 

After a few weeks, I got up the courage to ask her out. We went for a drink in the bar of the President Hotel, the place – and almost the only place – to go to in Gaborone. Felicity tells me I spent much of that first date telling her about my ex-girlfriend… 

However, after that inauspicious start, we found that we shared an interest in the people and culture of Botswana and enjoyed visiting the traditional villages outside the capital. 

We were seeing each other regularly, going to school staff parties and gatherings at friends’ homes and were becoming more and more fond of each other…when there was a small bump in the road: Felicity’s service contract ended in August 1969, and she had to return to England. 

We had talked about the possibility of Felicity coming back to Botswana, but we hadn’t made any definite plans so I spent a rather bleak autumn wondering if our love story was over. 

Back in London, Felicity ditched her plan to return to university for a post-graduate course and instead told her mum that she’d “met someone,” that she was going back to Botswana “to get to know him better” – and that no, she had “no intention” of getting married. 

So, in January 1970, Felicity was on her way back to Botswana, flying into Johannesburg, South Africa, and taking the train up to Gaborone.  I met her at the station, overwhelmed with happiness.

She got a teaching job at St. Joseph’s College, a Catholic school a few miles south of the city, and moved back in with her former housemates in Gaborone – Jackie, Liz, and Alison.  We saw each other nearly every day. 

One evening, Felicity made some moussaka – a Greek eggplant casserole – in my next-door neighbors, Kathy and Rob’s kitchen – they had a better equipped kitchen than I did – and as she was carrying it into my house, she dropped it – and it splattered all over the floor!  

She was, of course, very upset and angry with herself. But I said it wasn’t a problem, got down on my knees and cleaned it up and we dined on salad and a bottle of wine.

Perhaps kneeling down to mop up the moussaka gave me the inspiration, but during the second glass of wine, I asked Felicity to marry me. 

Felicity says that because I had been so nice about the moussaka…or perhaps it was that second glass of wine...she said yes!

The next day we weren’t too certain about what we’d done the night before, and we didn’t talk about getting married again for at least a week! 

Surrounded by friends and fellow teachers, we officially revealed our engagement at a party at my house. I had roasted a goat in a barbecue pit outside, and everyone was gathered in the front yard, when headmaster Ian clapped his hands to get their attention and made the announcement for us. 

We got married on April 23rd, 1970, in the Cathedral of Christ the King in Gaborone. Felicity wore a long white dress she had bought in a shop in London, not as a wedding dress but just because she liked it, and it was on sale for £5. I was dressed in a white lace-up neck shirt, brown trousers and sandals with no socks – very hip!  

Felicity’s mum Joan, brother Andrew and his wife Thea came out for the wedding – the first time I had met them, of course. Her mum was a bit uncertain about the suitability of this unknown and strange American for her daughter, and I was a bit intimidated by this tall, elegant and very proper English woman. 

But during the few days before the wedding, we had meals together, did some sightseeing, and got to know one another a bit. 

The wedding was held during the school break, and most of our friends and fellow teachers were there. My former housemate, Jon, was the best man and official photographer, and Felicity’s brother walked her down the aisle. 

We had planned to have the reception in the front yard of our house and had left the food and drinks on tables outside. Well into the wedding ceremony, just before the “I do’s,” there was a huge clap of thunder and rain began pelting down! We and the guests looked at each other in dismay. 

However, in Botswana, home of the vast Kalahari Desert, rain is a sign of good luck. The Setswana word pula means both rain and blessings – and sure enough, Felicity’s housemates had put the tables of food and drink up on the porch out of the rain and headmaster Ian opened the school hall for us. 

The wedding cake was baked by Felicity’s housemate, Jackie, and the food was catered, not by the fancy President Hotel, but by a more downscale one near the train station.

The next morning, we flew southeast to Lourenço Marques, as it was called then, in Mozambique and spent our honeymoon on an idyllic beach on the Indian Ocean. 

And now, two sons, four grandchildren, and 55 years later, we’re even more in love than we were on that beach in Africa.

Wings in Love. 

If you have a good love story to share – and who doesn’t? – please send it, with a few pictures if possible, to Dan at dandoug@iastate.edu. Please try to keep your stories around a thousand words or less.