“I just want to say that it the happiest day of my life, it really was. And everybody said it would be and it was.”

Nicole Brown Simpson

With an arm firmly around the waist of her adoring husband and as she gazes up at his handsome face; Nicole talks about the ‘happiest day of my life’ to the videographer on the eve of her wedding day and perhaps if history had taken her and her spouse along a different path – February 2 2022 could have been the 37th year of her union to one Orenthal James Simpson.

Alas, their union as man and wife lasted a mere seven years and all that remains to us of that fateful day in 1985 are the poignant images of the happy couple and that unanswered question – how could it have all gone so terribly wrong?

It’s probably a question that the poet Lord Byron was also asking himself on this very day in 1816 as his union of 54 weeks to the former Annabella Milbanke was beginning to unravel in a spectacular fashion and although the popular newspapers had a field day with the tales of the poet’s acrimonious separation which hinted at incest, sodomy and murder precipitating Byron’s exile to Europe and which is STILL discussed and argued about some 206 years later!

My 3 x Great Grandparents were also married on this day in the coastal town of Scarboro in 1868 and as they are buried together in the local cemetery after a long union which produced nine off-spring – I am quietly confident that no skeletons will come tumbling out of the family closet in the very near future BUT please don’t hold me to it.

Come to think of it, the month of February remains a strong favourite for a family betrothal as my history journals chronicle several more who journeyed into wedlock during this month – myself included.

However and in the words of one Judge Lance Ito – let’s return to the Simpson matter!

Having shamelessly neglected my Facebook page in memory of Nicole for several weeks, I shared a few edited images of her as a bride today and although most have been well received, I had to delete some of the abusive comments posted by one visitor to the site who was furious with me for including the name of ‘Simpson’ as if the man she married had no place in the history of her life.

Now, what’s in a name I hear you ask?

The lady herself is known the world over as Nicole Brown Simpson and it is the name her family still use.

Brown Simpson remained her legal name until her death and let’s not forget that in those 911 calls recorded in October 1993 when asked her name – she replied ‘Nicole Simpson’ even though she had been divorced for over a year and despite the fact that Simpson was STILL causing her emotional trouble.

However tempting it is to scribble over those unpleasant tales in the narrative of our history and to air-brush those we dislike from our family tree or to simply deny the existence of others who demean our sense of who we belong to; I have always believed that our duty to the truth is to let our history stand; no matter how imperfect or offensive we may later find it.

And as history records that on this day, Nicole believed that she had married the man of her dreams, her ‘one true love’ and that February 2 1985 was for her at that time THE ‘best day’ of her life.