Leon & June
LIVERPOOL
Leon, 79, and June, 77, have been married for
54 years. They are both retired teachers.
Leon taught History (to Wayne Rooney’s
aunts and uncles, among others) and June
taught English (to Willy Russell’s children,
among others). Leon is a keen bridge player,
and June enjoys swimming. They have two
daughters and three grandchildren.
HOW DID YOU MEET?
LEON: Teacher training college, 1955. I’d just done National Service in the army and you came from South Wales. And there was this beautiful girl… and that was it.
JUNE: We had to be in at 10.30 at night. And nobody broke the rules, or you were sent down for three days. We liked the big bands in those days, and they used to come to the town halls, and we used to go. But you had to ask permission. You had to be on the last bus back: it dropped you in the village at quarter to twelve, and you were in before midnight. And you had to have a signed pass.
LEON: It was very hard with my parents, though, because I’m Jewish and June isn’t. So we had murders before we could get married.
JUNE: Leon’s an only child, so it was very difficult for his parents to come to terms with.
LEON: But in the end we won through, didn’t we?
JUNE: Once they realised that we were determined to get married with or without their blessing, they came to terms with it.
LEON: We used to watch Coronation Street with my parents.
JUNE: That’s right. Your mother started watching it and said, ‘Oh, you’ve got to come over and watch it.’ We’d been married about six months.
LEON: And we finally got a television.
JUNE: Rented, in those days. Leon did nights at play centres after school to pay the television rental. And then, when we had the children there were always good programmes on Sunday teatime – Anne of Green Gables, Little Women…
LEON: Wind in the Willows.
JUNE: And we’d sit with the children and have a picnic tea. We had a travel rug, and we used to pretend we were outside. They used to do their homework and we used to do our marking all at the same time in various parts of the house. And then it was, right, it’s tea, everybody’s finished, everything’s away, we’re all going to do this together. I’ve always made a point where we eat together and we watch some TV together.
HOW DID YOU GET ON GOGGLEBOX?
LEON: I’m a member of Liverpool Bridge Club and last year two girls came in looking for people. And I got talking to them, and they said, ‘This programme’s coming out – are you interested?’
JUNE: He always comes home with a story. He said, ‘Guess what? Somebody from TV was there today.’ I said, right. (I thought he meant playing bridge.) He said, ‘We could be on TV.’ I said, don’t be ridiculous. And he goes on and on and on about it. I thought, it’s such a simple idea, it’s not going to catch on.
BEING RECOGNISED
LEON: We were getting hugged in John Lewis yesterday.
JUNE: We went down to London to see the tennis last November. And this woman came up and said, ‘Hi, June. How are you?’ I said, ‘Hello.’ And she said, ‘Where’s Leon?’
I just couldn’t believe it. After that, we were stopped probably a dozen times that day. I mean, I’m not surprised in Liverpool, because Liverpool love their own, but London? We were just staggered.
LEON:
