Me and the Table - My Autobiography by Hendry Stephen;

Author:Hendry, Stephen; [Stephen Hendry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 5508520
Publisher: John Blake Publishing
Published: 2018-10-23T16:00:00+00:00

GOLF COURSES I’VE

PLAYED AT

Loch Lomond

Sunningdale

Gleneagles (Queen’s Course)

Bel Air Country Club, Los Angeles

Emirates Golf Club, Dubai

CHAPTER 14

By 1995, Mandy and I will have been together for ten years. Now and again we’re asked by family and friends when we’re likely to get married. I don’t mind admitting that I’m somewhat awkward about these things. Being the centre of attention in a capacity not related to snooker is out of my comfort zone. But I know Mandy would like to get married and to start making a fuss about it would be churlish.

I never look at it in any other way than ‘This is what we should be doing by now’. We’re very different personalities; she shows her emotions easily, whereas I don’t. I’m not keen on confrontation or arguments and tend to keep quiet when faced with such moments. But it’s the normal stuff of relationships and we’re very happy together, albeit I’m not at home much. She understands this; she met me when I was an unknown and had nothing, and now my career is more successful and busy I’m away from her a lot. Working with her horses or spending time with her family in Blackpool makes the times I’m away easier for her.

I’m not a great romantic, but when our shared future surfaces as a topic for discussion we agree that we would like to be married before we have children. So I buy an engagement ring and, one afternoon, when she’s up at the stables working with her horses, I pay her a visit and ask her to marry me. I reckon she’ll be pleased to get a proposal of marriage in the place she’s happiest, close to her horses, and she is. For me, it’s the nearest I will get to a grand gesture. We will marry in the summer of 1995, when the World Championship is over.

Meanwhile, Mandy continues the house-hunting and, before long, she sees a property we immediately fall in love with. The house, called Norwood, is in the small town of Auchterarder, less than two miles from Gleneagles. Although it doesn’t have stables, there are five acres of land on which to create equestrian buildings. In the meantime, Mandy will be able to keep her horses at Gleneagles. The house itself has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a games room – complete with full-sized snooker table, which is what catches her eye when she’s browsing – and a garage with space for three cars. There is more than enough room in which to raise a family. It’s not far from Stirling and getting to Edinburgh or Glasgow airports is easy.

Ian’s rules about buying property still apply, so I purchase the place outright at around £350,000. The problem is that Westfield House hasn’t yet sold and there seems to be a lack of interest in it. So now I’m the owner of two substantial properties, one of which I would like to move to and the other I’m nervous about leaving empty in case it’s broken into.

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