How we met

101 Comments
21st March 1981. The minister is my Dad.

It was our wedding anniversary last week. I celebrated in Glasgow, and John celebrated by flying to China on business. Oh well, we’ve celebrated a few anniversaries already (36 of them, mostly together) and hopefully have quite a few more to come, so I’m not complaining. Too much.

Last year I mentioned our anniversary in my March Gallivanting post, and had originally included a section on how we met. As the post grew longer and longer, I had to cut it out. I think this year’s March post might be a long one too and, as I have nothing else written for this week, here’s that section now.

How we met

Anabel and John, March 81

In autumn 1979 I went to Sheffield to do my Masters in Librarianship. I moved into a student flat in Victoria House which I shared with four other young women: two more postgraduates and two first-year undergraduates. We felt quite sorry for the first-years, who seemed to have nothing in common, and decided they needed more friends. We were thinking female and their own age (18 – we were looking down at them from the lofty height of 22). Between us, we leafleted all the flats in the block inviting people to meet in our kitchen to set up some social events.

What we didn’t know was that our flat was not typical and, apart from us and two women downstairs, the occupants were all men. Postgraduate men. As our kitchen filled up with them I answered the door to the last arrival. Readers, I would have been astonished to know it, but this was my future husband. However, I can report that my very first thought was “Oh no, not another old man!” Not a promising start.

After a bit of discussion, our large group of men and a few women hit the nearest pub then dispersed in smaller groups to various other destinations, the local curry-house in my case. I didn’t see John again that evening and, apart from the odd hello when passing on the stairs, didn’t speak to him again all term. He admits to a flicker of interest but noticed that I had a boyfriend already.

By January that relationship was over. One evening, my flatmate and I returned from the cinema to find John and his friends had tied climbing ropes to their balcony and were abseiling down the building. (This photo of me on the balcony outside our kitchen gives you some idea of how it worked. There were three floors, we were on the middle one and John was immediately above.) Conversation ensued, and we were invited to a concert the following night for which John was doing the “on-stage visuals” (remember this was 1980, it meant he was operating the slide projector). We became friendly as a group,  John and I soon became a couple and we got married the following March.

Romantic? I think so! Let me know in the comments if you have a better story.

England, Family history, People, UK ,

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  5. What a great story. Reminds me of how Mary and I met: we were both looking for email pals for our students, she in the US in Karnes City, I in Niederkassel in Germany, and on March 5th, 1998, both of us sent an email to a mailing-list at St. Olaf’s University in Minnesota. Well, I answered hers, and … the rest is history! 🙂

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    • So you were still in Germany when you met – I hadn’t realised that. Moving country is very romantic! And my highly developed arithmetic skills (😉) tell me you have recently had the 20th anniversary of that meeting.

      Your blogs have gone very quiet, I miss them!

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      • Yes, I was still in Germany when we met. And we “dated” for 11 years, before we married in 2009. I came over here to the US “for keeps” in 2008.
        Re my blogs: it was more or less accidentally that my blog pause started in December last year and then went on and on. But it’s been a good experience. Yesterday I started to write a post about it, and maybe I can finish that this weekend.
        It does good to know that I am missed. 🙂 Let’s see when I return to “full-time blogging”.
        Have a great weekend,
        Pit

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  6. A belated happy anniversary! I’ve been away in Canada celebrating my Dad’s 87th birthday, but I wanted to get back to your How We Met post so I could comment. It’s a lovely story and you both look so sweet in that wedding photo! Congratulations and all the best.

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  7. I love your first picture…we have no grey hairs and look so youthful but we still are young in our hearts. Your story is sweet and love us7ally hits when we are not looking for it. I wasn’t when I met my hubby and he wasn’t looking either but we knew pretty quick that we were meant to be warts and all

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  10. I love it, Anabel! Romantic, meant to be, cute. Too bad you don’t have any photos of John abseiling from the floor above you. How did it feel to have your own dad as a minister? As far as the story of how Mark and I met… that will be described in my memoir. And, yes, it is an incredible story. We have told it to many people (the owners of our newest house sit yesterday, for example), and each time, their jaw hits the floor. 🙂

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    • There are some abseiling pictures but they are in a box in the loft – one of many boxes of photos which used to be tidy but have got muddled over the years. It seemed like too much effort to look for them! The pictures I used were my mum’s. It was actually quite distracting having my dad there – apparently I looked at him when saying my vows instead of at John! I look forward to reading your story some day.

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  11. We met at a Sunday School Teachers Retreat at Carberry Tower. I wasn’t going as I had been to several and decided to miss this one. The minister decided otherwise and picked me up in the morning. That’s where I met Annabell. When we were married in August of the following year, both Ministers, the Rev, Alex Keith and the Rev, James Curry conducted the Wedding. We have been married now for 45 years..

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  12. There’s no such thing as a ‘better’ story … only a different one 🙂

    I love the story of how you met and obviously it’s been a good things because you’ve now celebrated 37 years of marriage!! This year we will be celebrating our 35th, and I don’t know about you, but sometimes I wonder how all that time went so quickly!

    Congratulations and best wishes for many more 🙂

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  13. Happy belated anniversary! I like hearing how people met, and you have a nice story (I especially like the abseiling down the building part!). I guess Marcus and I met sort of similarly, in that we were living the same building, but we were actually housemates (with three other people). We started dating about two months after I moved in, and luckily it worked out, otherwise finishing the tenancy would have been awfully awkward!

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  16. Fabulous story and a very Happy Anniversary to you both . . . . not sure I can beat your very romantic story but you might find my tale amusing.

    MrB was on the interview panel of a job I went for in Basingstoke in the mid 90s. I had spent most of the morning travelling by train from where I lived in Brighton, so wasn’t very impressed when my interview was delayed because MrB had to go and buy his lunch!

    The interview finally commenced in a very hot room, and I was becoming even more unimpressed they had not got any water nor that the windows were closed. That was soon rectified, and so it began. About half way through it was time for MrB to ask his questions, at which point I decided I really didn’t want the job. He asked impossible questions!!

    Well I survived the interview and that evening I was offered the job. I told them I would think about it! A week later I was still thinking as I was hoping to get another job nearer Brighton. Needless to say the other job did not come through and I decided that the Basingstoke job was still better than the one I had in Worthing. So I took it. I later learned he had asked such awkward questions because it was such a dreadful organisation to work for. His thinking was if anyone can cope with this interview then they will survive the organisation.

    He was right about that organisation, and whilst I coped with it I decided to escape after just two years. But a year or so before I found my next job I realised MrB was not as horrid as I first thought. He was in fact rather charming and wonderful 🙂 It was another decade though before we married 11ish years ago!

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  19. Lovely! Congratulations 💐 Especially to be married by your Father. We celebrated 34 years on 24 March. 1984. We met in July 83. So like you were pretty quick!

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  20. I love your story of how you met. You met him on a rope in between floors!!! And congrats to both of you for all the years under your belt. Love is what makes life worth living.

    Peta

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  21. Happy Anniversary, Anabel and John. This is a wonderful ‘how we met’ story. Your photos are beautiful!

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  25. Just in case you didn’t notice this ‘old man’ he was rappelling down the outside of your house, showing you he’d go to great heights to gt your attention. Love the story, Anabel! Congratulations on your anniversary. I can’t beat it, but we did have a unique first date – his entire family came with us. haha!

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  27. Congratulations and Happy Anniversary! Like another reader, I immediately associated the abseiling element with Milk Tray. Goodness how we have been indoctrinated by advertising! Like you, my husband and I met at university as we were billeted in the same very small (60 people) halls of residence. My first impression was that he was a “total twerp” but we ended up spending a lot of time together, quickly became firm friends, and from there became a couple. That was a quarter of a century ago. Yikes. I still think he’s a bit of a twerp but apparently that is a quality I find attractive. Ha ha!

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  28. I do find the notion of him abseiling down the building a little odd, Anabel. A variation on the Milk Tray man? 🙂 🙂 He looks such a sensible sort these days but I know that looks can be deceptive. I’m glad that you got together because it obviously was meant to be.

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  31. Really nice story. I can’t imagine public libraries not being around and even with easy internet access in most households these days they still perform education for adults and children and provide access to reading truthful material in an age of increasing fake online news and false but widely held opinions that can only dominate society in the future with shallow snippet 20 word captions, (if you’re lucky.) Libraries are a last bastion against all that.

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  32. Congratulations! I cannot imagine what it is like to have such a long-lasting relationship as I have been married three times and all my meetings have been very different. In fact adding the all together only equals 21 years! I did meet the current OH face-to-face for the first time at Sheffield railway station 🙂

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  33. Hi Anabel – what a wonderful way to meet … and John is still abseiling off … even if it’s to China … but you’re still together enjoying each other’s company – here’s to many more years together … cheers Hilary

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    • I know, I genuinely thought that! Not that he was really old, just that we were looking for teenage girls to be friends with our flatmates. It seems the follow up is requested by several people.

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  36. Not a better one, but I met my husband when the person for whom I babysat in London told me her young brother was coming for a weekend. By ‘young’ I took her to mean about 12. Turned out he was six years my senior but we got on well and a year later we were engaged. I was lucky in that I had met his mother, father, two brothers and one sister before I met him and they all liked me (I think), so no problems with meeting the family.

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  38. Anabel, you just know it’s the right one, it’s just a feeling an instinct!! Ahhh, the vicar’s daughter, great title for a book! A slightly offbeat romantic scenario and very unique 🙂

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  42. Happy Anniversary, Anabel and John! I love this story about how you met. I too am waiting for the sequel, since “We became friendly as a group, John and I soon became a couple and we got married the following March” glosses over all the juicy stuff. I’m waiting for details about the romance that developed! 🙂

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  43. A great story Anabel, do please elaborate in a future post and tell us more – I often think it’s intriguing how long-standing couples first met. I met my last partner on his doorstep as I was coming back from the stables early one morning – I smelled of haylage, horse muck and shavings but he still got chatting to me! Maybe that would make a future post on my own blog so thanks for the idea 🙂

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  44. Definitely romantic, Anabel. I hope you’re going to continue the story in some future posts. The lead up was very satisfying and did answer the ‘how we met’ question, but “We became friendly as a group, John and I soon became a couple” definitely requires some elaboration. How quickly did you know he was the one for you? Was it something he said? Did? Please – tell us more!

    Oh, and happy anniversary. How special to be married by your father!

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