I was 17 years old, on a school activity holiday in Devon. The first morning was water skiing. He was to be the instructor. When we met, it was the thunderbolt moment, he was the one for me, I was in love.
We chatted easily, he was good fun, and made the whole day fantastic, everyone liked him. At the disco the next night, he asked me to dance, I was in heaven, we spent the rest of the evening drinking, chatting and dancing.
The next day he asked the teacher in charge if he could take me to the cinema. We saw Moonraker. He tried his luck afterwards, somehow I resisted, giving in completely the next night. I was young and had experienced fumblings with boys of a similar age to me. He was ten years older and knew what he was doing; it was like coming home.
He stayed at our house on and off during the summer, and became part of the family, he just fitted in. During that summer I became a woman, I loved him and he loved me. He had to return to Australia, he was a wheat farmer, the crop had to be harvested. This deadline only intensified the urgency and passion between us. We said we would write lots of letters to each other and he wanted to come back the following year. A few days after he had gone, a telegram arrived from a girl in Australia obviously desparate for communication, a girlfriend previously unmentioned.
I was distraught, and listened to my parents — “It would never work out, we were from different worlds, the age gap . . .” I wrote a cold letter, enclosing the telegram, and that was it.
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I knew in my heart that he was the one; no one would ever match him. Today I have been with my partner 25 years and have two children, but I know he was the one. Why did I never contact him? I did two years later and received a letter back from his aunt. He had been killed in a hang-gliding accident the year before, now 30 years ago. He never knew he was the one; every day I think of him. I still cry at the loss, but smile because I met the one — some never do.
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