The strangest 60 year anniversary is arriving for Hay author Bridget Ashton. “I was on the back of a lorry rattling over the Atlas mountains with my friend Mary, on the 17th of August 1965. Sixty years ago! And there I received my first marriage proposal.”

“We were making ourselves comfortable on crates of empty drink bottles. It was the evening of my 21st birthday, and the lorry had stopped for a break. Mary produced a card made from sand of the Sahara, a big waxed candle and a packet of biscuits. We shared them with the lorry driver and his companion.”

“Before long, the lorry driver had other ideas. Eventually upon my continual refusal, and when the price reached as far as £5, he said to me: “Madame, je vous épouserai!” Madame, I will marry you!”

Bridget didn’t take him up on his offer.

She added: “How different my life might have been! Now, on the 60-year anniversary of my first marriage proposal, I have no regrets. One and a half years later, I married my American young man friend, and we still love each other as much as ever.”

Read the full extract below:

I Will Marry You, Madame

Atlas Mountains, 17 August 1965

Are you going to Marrakesh?” Mary asks the driver. It is afternoon in the Moroccan desert town of Zagora.

“Oui, oui, Marrakesh.” The lorry driver nods. We agree a time to meet him in the evening. When we arrive, he indicates that we must clamber onto the open back of the lorry. We scramble up, pulling our baskets behind us onto crates of empty bottles. Here we must make ourselves comfortable.

We settle down for a long ride north across the High Atlas Mountains. We leave the Sahara behind, the lorry bumping and shaking us and the bottles rattling noisily in their crates.

Every so often, the lorry stops and a man in loose flowing robes climbs up or another one leaves. There is room in the cab for one or two besides the driver, but from time to time a man joins us on the crates. This one grins at us cheerfully, pointing and constantly saying, “Bonjour, M’sieu.” As many times as we say, “Bonjour, M’selle,” pointing to ourselves, he simply repeats “Bonjour, M’sieu” and chuckles some more. We are a tired, rattling little group on the crates of bottles. After a long uphill climb, the lorry pulls over to cool the engine on the roadside. An enormous cliff falls precipitously down to our right in the black depths of the stony mountainside. Suddenly, “Happy birthday to you…” Mary sings forth in the silence of the night.

What is this? I realise that midnight has passed, and the date is 17 August 1965. It is the morning of my twenty-first birthday.

She pulls a birthday cake out of her basket. It is a packet of biscuits and a thick household wax candle. Next comes a parcel containing pomegranates she has raided from an orchard and a sprig of unripe dates. She hands me a card she has created showing a camel made from Sahara sand.

“Merci, Marie,” I say, and give her a hug in the darkness.

We invite the driver and the young boy with him in the cab to our party. M’sieu Man goes off to take a turn sleeping in the cabin, while the four of us light the candle and share out the biscuits.

The driver has decided that we should rest here for some hours. We manage to snuggle down on the crates of bottles, using our clothes and baskets for pillows, and somehow drift into an uneasy sleep. When the driver makes an improper move, I wake up and get rid of him by swearing at him so fiercely in English that he backs off. After an interval a young man climbs up onto the back of the lorry. My diary:

Handshakes, beams, friendship all round, and off the pair of them went down among the scanty bushes of the mountain side. I guess if woman won’t be man’s best friend, man will make do with man!

We woke as the sun rose and began the drive through the last of the jagged Atlas mountains. It was cold, and rained a little, pattering on our faces as we rolled along the stony desert road.

Mary and I move into the shelter of the cab. I am seated next to the driver, who continues to show an unsuitable interest in me.

I gradually learn my value in Morocco. He offers me many mille francs. As I determinedly keep on looking out of the window, saying, “Non, non, M’sieu,” he keeps putting up the price, which I translate mentally into pounds. When he gets as high as £5, he realises I can’t be bought. Both his French and mine are limited, but I understand the following well enough. “Madame, je vous épouserai!” Madame, I will marry you!

The full story of this and the author’s other Hay-linked adventures are published in the Hay Girl Trilogy and in Hit the Road, Gals. Both can be purchased on Amazon. They can also be read in Hay library.