This website is built to preserve the stories and memories of those of our family who have passed on. But this page is different. It shares information on two living people, and with video and a brief timeline it touches on highlights of the first 20 years of the lives of Mike Otterson and Cathy Berry, from birth until they were married in 1968. The historical timeline in the middle column shows world political, economic and cultural events that provide context for the parallel 20 years in world history.
Michael Robert Otterson
9 October 1948, born at Mill Road Maternity Hospital, Everton, Liverpool.
First home is Camp Hill, a British Army camp in the Liverpool suburb of Woolton.
21 November 1948, christened at St. James Methodist Church, Woolton.
16 July 1949. Father, Sergeant Robert Otterson, dies in road accident in Wales, while returning from an army training exercise.
22 December 1949. Mother has the first formal photograph taken at 14 months old.
1950. Family pays first visit to grandparents in Sunderland, on the other side of England, where the relatives lived. Grandpa had a car.
1951. Family moves from "Crossacres," Woolton Army Camp, to the prefab housing estate at Belle Vale, a little over two miles away.
1954. Start of school at Joseph Williams Primary School, Belle Vale Prefab estate.
1955. First formal school photograph is taken at Joseph Williams Primary School, age 7. The school uniform is green and yellow, with a striped tie.
1958. An uncle - Tom Otterson - arranges a visit to their home in Kirkintilloch, Scotland, for Michael and sister Ann, including a visit to Loch Lomond.
1959. Joseph Williams primary school creates its first football team. Selected to play at right half position. 1960. Football team becomes first in Liverpool to win two school cup competitions in the same year. (Back row, second from right). Sister, Ruth, marries Gordon Roberts, 11 June 1960. Takes the 11-plus exam at the end of primary school and passes. Given place at Holt High School, first choice.
9 Oct 1962. Receives 14th birthday gift of first racing bike from sister Ruth and her husband, Gordon. Starts riding everywhere - school, Liverpool area, then further afield to Cheshire, North Wales.
8 April 1964. Takes newly finished home-constructed telescope outside for the first time to view the moon, planets and stars.
October 1965. Soon after 17th birthday, has first job interview with the Weekly News Group on Merseyside. Accepted on reporting staff with immediate start in the Merseyside town of Widnes.
Early 1966. With the demolition of the prefab estate, moves with mother and sister Ann to a new maisonette at Cantril Farm, a new "Liverpool overspill" estate.
Mid-1966. Transferred from the Widnes office to the Liverpool office of the Weekly News.
20 September 1967. Has first date with Catherine Berry at the Childwall Abbey Hotel.
15 December 1967. Joins The Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints.
9 November 1968. Marries Cathy Berry at the Liverpool chapel of the church.
18 November 1968. Newly married couple goes on board the ocean liner Fairstar. The ship sails for Australia the following day, stopping at Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, Cape Town, South Africa, and Fremantle, Western Australia before arriving in Port Phillip Bay, Melbourne.
1948
- May 14 – Israel declares independence, leading to the Arab-Israeli War.
- June 24 – Berlin Blockade begins as the USSR blocks Western access to West Berlin.
- June 26 – Berlin Airlift begins to supply West Berlin.
1949
- April 4 – NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) founded.
- May 12 – Berlin Blockade ends.
- October 1 – People’s Republic of China founded by Mao Zedong.
- October 7 – George Orwell’s novel 1984 is published.
1950
- June 25 – Korean War begins as North Korea invades South Korea.
1951
- April 18 – European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) established, a precursor to the European Union.
1952
- November 1 – First U.S. hydrogen bomb test
1953
- March 5 – Joseph Stalin dies.
- July 27 – Korean War ends with an armistice.
- March 26 – First James Bond novel, Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, is published.
1954
- May 7 – French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, leads to the end of the First Indochina War.
- May 17 – Brown v. Board of Education ruling (U.S. Supreme Court declares racial segregation unconstitutional).
- July 19 – First edition of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien published.
1955
- May 14 – Warsaw Pact formed by the USSR and its allies.
- December 1 – Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat, sparking the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
1956
- October 23 – Hungarian Revolution begins against Soviet control.
- November 4 – Soviet Union crushes Hungarian Revolution.
- October 29 – Suez Crisis begins as Israel, the UK, and France attack Egypt.
- September 9 – Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show, bringing rock & roll into mainstream culture.
1957
- March 25 – Treaty of Rome signed, founding the European Economic Community (EEC).
- October 4 – Sputnik 1 launched, first artificial satellite (start of the Space Race).
1958
- July 14 – Iraqi Revolution, monarchy overthrown.
1959
- January 1 – Cuban Revolution succeeds, Fidel Castro takes power.
- September 15 – Soviet probe Luna 2 impacts the Moon, first human-made object to reach it.
1960
- May 1 – U-2 Incident, U.S. spy plane shot down over the USSR.
- June 30 – Congo Crisis begins after Belgian Congo gains independence.
1961
- April 12 – Yuri Gagarin becomes first human in space (Vostok 1).
- April 17 – Bay of Pigs Invasion fails in Cuba.
- August 13 – Berlin Wall construction begins.
- February 9 – The Beatles perform at the Cavern Club for the first time.
1962
- October 16-28 – Cuban Missile Crisis brings the U.S. and USSR to the brink of nuclear war.
- August 5 – Marilyn Monroe dies from suicide.
- October 5 – First James Bond film (Dr. No) released.
1963
- November 22 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy assassinated.
- August 28 – Martin Luther King Jr. delivers “I Have a Dream” speech during March on Washington.
- May 27 – The Beatles release Please Please Me, launching the "British Invasion" of the US.
1964
- August 2-4 – Gulf of Tonkin Incident, leading to U.S. escalation in Vietnam.
- October 14 – China tests its first nuclear bomb.
1965
- March 7 – Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, major event in U.S. Civil Rights Movement.
- August 6 – U.S. Voting Rights Act signed into law.
1966
- October 15 – Black Panther Party founded in the U.S.
- September 8 – First episode of Star Trek airs on TV.
1967
- June 5-10 – Six-Day War, Israel defeats Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.
1968
- January 30 – Tet Offensive begins in Vietnam.
- April 4 – Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated.
- August 20-21 – Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, crushing the Prague Spring.
- November 25 - Richard Nixon elected president of the United States.
- December 21 - NASA launches Apollo 8, the first manned spacecraft to orbit the Moon and return safely to Earth. Astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders become the first humans to see the far side of the Moon and take the famous "Earthrise" photo. They also read from the Book of Genesis in a live broadcast on Christmas Eve.
Catherine Berry
6 September 1948, born at 43 Eldon Street, Liverpool, the 8th of 10 children born to William Berry and Annie Giles Berry.
20 March 1950. Sister Linda born at Eldon Street.
1950. First formal photograph taken of Cathy, about 18 months.
1952. Berry family moves eight miles to 19 Cawthorne Avenue in Kirkby as part of Liverpool's pre-war housing clearance and redevelopment. The family takes occasional breaks at holiday camps in North Wales.
1953. Cathy starts school. Soon falls over in school playground and cuts her knee, resulting in osteomyelitis. Admitted to Alder Hey children's hospital for what will be years of hospital care.
Over the next few years, the hospital will organize outings for the children to the countryside, or trips to the theatre to see a pantomime.
1956. Sister Tina born at home in Cawthorne Avenue.
1956-1959. When not in hospital, Cathy attends Cherryfield Primary School in Kirkby. When she is finally discharged, she goes to St. Joseph's junior school, but after being bumped on her rehabilitated leg, she is transferred to an open-air convalescent school in the Liverpool suburb of Fazakerley for about a year.
1959. Attends St Gregory's Catholic secondary school in Kirkby. The headmistress is a nun and enforces the uniform skirt length. The uniform is a navy blue skirt and blazer, with tie. Cathy particularly likes the beret.
Attends an after-school judo class, but breaks collar bone on first visit and doesn't go back.
Makes friends and hangs out with Margaret Forster, Pat Fitzgerald, Pat McInerny and Dorothy Sweeney.
26 September 1961. William Berry, father, dies at home from lung cancer. It is sister Tina's 5th birthday.
July 1963. Leaves school shortly before 16th birthday to take a job at the local chemist in Broad Lane, Kirkby.
A visit from an uncle in Belgium leads to a renewed acquaintance with second cousin Cathy Weightman, in the Liverpool suburb of Childwall. For the first time, Cathy meets missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at her cousin's home, and soon begins to attend meetings.
9 September 1966. Joins The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She is baptized by Harry Baldwin, a member of the Liverpool branch.
November 1966. Leaves for the United States to work for nine months as a nanny for a family in California. While there, she visits Disneyland and Salt Lake City, Utah.
August 1966. Returns to England.
20 September 1966. Has first date with Mike Otterson at the Childwall Abbey Hotel.
9 November 1968. Marries Mike Otterson at the Liverpool chapel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
18 November 1968. The couple go on board to their cabin for a month-long voyage to Australia.
