Here comes the bride

Yesterday we were in London - at Holy Trinity Church in Tooting, to be exact - for the wedding of a former Forest employee. (And it's not often I can say that!)

Josephine Gaffikin joined us in January 2001. It was her first full-time job after university. She worked in our London office for three years and did every job we threw at her. This included TV and radio work, and a compendium of ills called Health Wars: The Phantom Menace, reviewed HERE and reported HERE.

Then there was her tour of Britain's railways, staying in grotty guest houses from Sheffield to Plymouth - part of our 2001 campaign against Virgin Trains' proposed ban on smoking. (The two-week tour included her dramatic eviction from Carlisle railway station which was caught on camera and featured on the the local television news.)

Her finest hour, however, has to be the time she took to the stage at University College Dublin wearing a pair of fuschia pink cowboy boots featuring the unmistakable image of a Marlboro Man-style smoker on each boot. From that moment, the members of the UCD Debating Society were putty in her hands.

All this experience must have been useful because she is now head of communications at the prestigious Design Museum in London.

Anyway, back to the wedding. The bride looked lovely and, true to form, the wedding included lots of nice individual touches. They included a rousing rendition of a well-known reggae song played (and sung) by the bride's sister during which the entire congregation was invited to pivot 360 degrees at a certain point in the chorus. Given the heels some of the women were wearing, this was no easy task, but it generated plenty of laughs.

The service was conducted by a vicar who not only entered into the spirit of things with some light-hearted quips, but - at one point - even heckled the bride's father from the back of the church hall during the speeches.

The sun shone throughout the celebrations. In fact, I don't recall better weather all summer. So congratulations, Jo and Jan-Martijn. Here's to a long and very happy marriage. Bon voyage!