Monday 5th February

Ah Joybells.  This was about as close to love at first sight as I ever got.  Joy was a telephonist (you know, those internal operators with plugs on the end of rubberized cables – just connecting you) at a Hotel I had just joined as Assistant Accountant.  We met over coffee and went out that night and she practically stayed since then.  I suddenly felt confident, this could work.  She was so easy-going and actually loving and lovely.  We got married and had a wonderful honeymoon in what was then Yugoslavia.  We decided to have a child and were over the moon when Laura arrived.

Things were looking up.  We moved to a nice private flat with a controlled rent (back in the good old days rents were often controlled with minimally allowed increases), I changed jobs and was earning more money, Justin was starting school and we had a lovely little family.  I joined the Labour Party and got quite involved with my local Constituency, even attending Annual Conference twice and standing for the local council (I lost – it was solidly Tory back then).  Joy started playing table tennis at a local club.  We had some great Saturday nights playing cards with friends and playing music into the early hours.  In fact it was our joint love of music which had helped seal our love; that first night we played alternately Terry Reid’s ‘River’ (her choice) and McCartney’s ‘Red Rose Speedway’ (mine).

Anyway….

It all went wrong when I discovered that she was having an affair with a guy called Peter who she had met at the table tennis club.  I confronted her and gave her a choice – leave him and we would try to get our love back on track, or leave me.

She chose the latter….

For all my fans out there, this will be the last installment in this little series (far too may people I might mention are on Facebook, but I hope you have enjoyed it…hahaha)