Love is in the air

After winter comes Spring, and for one Gypsy community in Suffolk, the return of longer and better days is being marked by a wedding to be proud of. Sarah Lovelock reports.

Wedding bells are ringing for a travelling family in Kessingland after months of illness and suffering. Doreen Davis was admitted to the James Paget Hospital, Gorelston, on New Years Day with pneumonia and is still in hospital. She has only been home for six days in the past three months.
Her husband, William Holland, was later admitted the same day for heart problems and is back in his mobile home after having a pacemaker fitted.

Lifting the spirits of the site is their granddaughter, 20 year-old Susie Davis, who is getting married on Saturday March 28 at 2.30pm at Kessingland Church.
Susie said: “My grandma Doreen might not be able to make the wedding, she has had her leg amputated from her knee because of diabetes. My granddad is going which is really great as we didn’t think he’d make it.”

Around 200 guests are expected at the silver and white wedding reception at the White Feather Hotel in Great Yarmouth. Susie and her fiancé Jimmy Butler, 19-years-old, from Hereford, have made lots of friends travelling around the country and have large families.
The couple met at a wedding and started dating four years ago.
Jimmy proposed last year over the phone and then again at the Cambridge fair. Jimmy said: “At first she said no but I brought it up again six months later and that’s when she said yes.”
Site manager, Ian Real said: “This wedding will lift the spirits of the site, the Davis family in particular, and it’s good to see some light at the end of the tunnel.”

There will be four bridesmaids as well as two flower girls from the Kessingland site. Susie wants her wedding dress to be a surprise on the day. She said: “I don’t want anyone to know what it looks like but I do want Leona Lewis playing as I walk down the aisle.”