Town Hall Memories

Alan and Dorothy Daines take a trip down memory lane and revisit Hackney Town Hall 60 years after marrying there

Original photo of Alan and Dorothy Daines outside Hackney Town Hall 60 years ago

“Hackney Town Hall was part of our lives. When I say to people we got married there everyone knows it!” says Alan Daines, who married his wife Dorothy (Dot) at Hackney Town Hall on 26 September 1964.

Sixty years later the couple returned to Hackney, with their two daughters Sarah and Debbie, for a trip down memory lane, tea and cake, and a tour of the building.

Alan recalls: “We eloped, and we’re finally going on honeymoon next week – we’re off to Mallorca! In 1964 things were hard and we couldn’t do that.

“My family were in Margate in the 1950s and my mother-in-law used to run a guesthouse there, in Cliftonville, so I’ve known Dot forever. One day, when she was  at teaching college, she decided to give up – she didn’t want to do it.

“So when she went home, and told her mum, I got the blame and I wasn’t to see her anymore. So we just left – we cleared off on impulse. I drove her to my home, at Parkholme Road in Hackney, down the end of Wilton Way.”

Watch a video of Alan and Dot sharing their wedding memories at Hackney Town Hall

Dorothy continues: “And his mum put me up and we got married after a few weeks. It was a time when you got a tax break, if you got married in September, and the 26th was the last day you could get married. 10 o’clock in the morning was the only time left! 

“Afterwards, at the party, I was dancing with his brother, because Alan wasn’t much of a dancer, and he knocked the wedding cake. The bride and groom fell off and their heads dropped off! I said ‘that’s an omen!’”

However, 60 years on, the bride and groom are still happily married. The couple stayed in Parkholme Road before moving to Bakers Arms in Waltham Forest, then Kent – where they live today.

Dorothy laughs: “I thought  Dalston was a bit of a tip! His mother called me a snob because I came from a house with a bathroom. There was no bathroom in Dalston.”

Walking around the Grade II listed Art Deco building today, which was refurbished in 2017, Alan is amazed at how different Hackney Town Hall looks.

He says: “60 years ago it just seemed like a basic dingy office with brown chairs, you know? It’s a lovely building now.”

Interested in getting married in Hackney? Visit Hackney Venues