Bernard and Rita

Worried that something terrible must have happened to Rita to make her give up baby Polly, Bernard hired a private detective to track her down.

She was soon found and Bernard met up with her in ‘The Hastily Constructed’ public house. Rita explained that her husband had struggled to bring up another man’s child as his own and had eventually run off with ‘Bendy Brenda’ from the typing pool at work, leaving her homeless and penniless. In desperation she had returned baby Polly to Bernard and travelled to faraway Greconville in search of work.

[It’s probably worth pointing out here that Rita is not of true Grecon blood. Having been made by the doyenne of Grecons and Grecon Tales, Rosemary Myers, she could more correctly be called a Rosmyr (to use the same concatenation of her Rosemary’s name as Miss Greta Cohen did of her own), or a Fakon – fake Grecon – though there is nothing fake about Rita’s character.]

Of course kind-hearted Bernard took pity on Rita and insisted that she came to live with himself and the twin girls in a Triang DH/D of his fathers that had recently become vacant. Rita willingly acquiesced as she’d missed baby Polly dreadfully. Initially, Bernard slept on the Pit-a-Pat pullout sofa-bed but the relationship soon moved on and before too long, Bernard proposed to Rita on the terrace of the Bel Cibo Italian Restaurant and was accepted.

A date was set for the wedding and Rita’s Decree Absolute came through just in time to avoid any trouble with the law.

The simple wedding went well and was enjoyed by all. Sylvia and Polly acted as bridesmaids together with shy little Meggy – Bernard and Rita’s newly-adopted daughter.

After the wedding, Bernard, Rita and the girls moved into the recently-renovated and larger Triang Princess 2. This allowed Bernard’s [less-happily married] sister Doris and her husband Stanley to move into the DH/D with their young daughter Shirley.