Love at first sight – then a 34-year wait…

Sandra was barely 13 and Ashley 16 when they first met.

It happened at a cubs and scouts camp in Hampshire. Sandra’s mum was a scout leader and took her along for the week. Ashley was one of the scouts there.

It was love at first sight. But the two teenagers lived 70 miles apart, him in Kent; her in West Sussex. So when they returned home after the scout camp the barriers to meeting up again were insurmountable. They soon lost contact.

Eventually Sandra met someone else, got married and had two children (Hailey and Gavin), eventually moving to Wales. But her heart wasn’t in it and in 2007, with the children now grown up, she and her husband divorced.

Ashley meanwhile had also met someone else but they never married and it didn’t work out for him either.

By now it was 2007, 34 years after this couple had first met. Sandra, living on her own, was having a clear out when she came across a photograph of Ashley. She had never forgotten him but now the memories all flooded back…

Sandra could still remember Ashley’s mother’s telephone number, even though they hadn’t had any contact for more than three decades. Feeling lonely, she rang it, never expecting there to be an answer.

But Ashley’s mum did answer and gave her his phone number. Little more than a week later Sandra and Ashley met up and within the year they were married.

Now, six years later, Mr and Mrs Ashley Rivett are the proud owners of a 1988 38x18 Omar park home bought in 2009 for £52,000. That’s where I met the Rivetts, on Beachfield Park at Aldingbourne, West Sussex, five miles from Bognor Regis where Sandra grew up.

It was love at first sight but took 34 years for this young couple to come together. However, as Ashley told me, ‘It was worth the wait.’

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