The year 1908 held great changes for Askwith – he had to contend with not only the pressures of a full-time job in the civil service but also a tremendous change in his whole lifestyle. At the age of forty-seven he had to slip into the roles of husband and stepfather, but his time outside his job was no longer entirely his own. January seems to have been a hectic month in the run-up to their marriage at Broxbourne, where Ellen's father and stepmother lived. Most of his frequent letters to Ellen are about the arrangements for the wedding and the honeymoon, but he still succeeded in fitting in some time for his favourite sport, shooting, and his social life. The weekend of 19 January finds him staying at Breamore with Lord James, who was in the best of spirits, playing golf and shooting in spite of his fading eyesight. ‘He has been totting up the birds claimed & can't understand a disparity of 8. That is because he says he shot 10 himself, while … I shot them for him after he missed’. Askwith reported with some satisfaction that his friend was making plans to take the estate for a further year – a matter which had been in some doubt.