I never asked my parents exactly how they met – they had been brought up in the same (or adjoining) villages and I assume they knew each other most of their lives. So in case any of my family want to ask me the same question….
It was 39 years ago this week: Sunday 19th February 1984 to be exact, when I first saw the man who was to be my companion for most of my life. I had been asked to accompany a group of school students – the Hillside School Choir – to spend a week in Offenburg, the twin town of Borehamwood where I lived and taught at the time. I had started my career at Hillside School, doing a one year maternity leave contract, at the end of which I have taken up a permanent post as an English teacher at the other Upper school in the town, Nicholas Hawksmoor. The two school slater amalgamated into Hertswood Secondary School. I was still friendly with several of the staff at Hillside including the Head of Music, Chris Weaver, who was leading the trip.
A few weeks before it was due to set off, Chris was advised that the coach company he had booked were unreliable – on a history trip they had been stopped on the way home at Dover, the drivers being out of hours they had to wait for replacement staff to be sent out. So Chris was on the look out for a coach company at short notice – and found on the staff room noticeboard a letter from a Christopher Sullivan who was the manager of Peter Pan Travel in Garston, asking for business and mentioning he was an old boy of the school. The company was accordingly asked to provide a coach and two drivers to accompany the trip and Christopher, seeking it was his old school and fancying a week in Germany, decided to book himself in as one of the drivers.
Thus at 7.30am on a very cold Sunday morning I crawled onto the coach on the front drive of Hillside School to be confronted with a wide awake and very handsome coach driver, introducing himself over the microphone and checking passports while his co-driver, John, took us to Sheerness on the first leg of our trip.I have to admit I was instantly attracted to him, but was convinced he would not notice me….
We crossed from Sheerness to Vlissingen and drove on through a very cold night – there was ice on the inside of the coach windows – to Offenburg. During an interesting week we visited Strasbourg, toured the area, went to a vineyard in the Black Forest and spent most evenings with all the adults having dinner together and repairing to someone’s hotel room with a bottle of whisky. Christopher and I got to know each other better through the week and on Thursday we were in a record shop where he presented me with the first gift he ever bought me – a vinyl LP of Rick Wakeman’s The Myths and Legends of King Arthur. By the time we got home I knew I wanted to see him again, so I gave him my phone number and said I might want to book a coach as the German students were intending to do a return visit. He gave me his work number; I called to ask for a quote for a coach and he decided to bring it round to my flat in person….and the rest is history!!
Sullivan Blyth Family 