Yes, folks it's 45 years to the day since Noel and I first said hello. In Portrush. Very close to here, where I was living in the upstairs flat at the time as a student.
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| 54 Causeway Street |
He'd come to visit a mutual friend and had a terrible journey from Belfast in the midst of the final day of a loyalist strike! None of the buses were running and the entire province was very tense. By the time he got to us, he was totally frazzled and not a little scared plus a wee bit sea-sick so I said he could sleep on the living-room floor.
At first this didn't seem, from his point of view, the momentous meeting it was. From my point of view, I took one look at him and thought, "I'm going to marry him." Now for person who doesn't believe in romance, that is a momentous thing! And it didn't take many conversations to confirm my certainty that this was, indeed THE ONE.
There were quite a few obstacles in the way but without planning it all, I ended up with a job in Cardiff and by the following 13th May, we were, as we used to say in those days, 'an item'.
Looks fade but a good conversation can last forever.
