My first marriage was to Kim, the mother of my two girls, Lauren and Sarah. We met on a construction site in west London, and immediately hit it off. Kim lived in Wembley not far from Hayes, where I bought my first flat.
We got hitched in 1991 and honeymooned in Western Australia, the Pinnacles Desert, Ningaloo, Kalbarri and Monkey Mia.
The journey took in Singapore, Indonesia and Bali, it was my first taste of the Far East and more tropical climates. Holidays back then were confined to Europe with a few special trips to North America, Florida’s Everglades and Disney (for the kids?).
We often headed over to Northern Ireland to visit My Ex’s family during the early years when “The Troubles” were still pretty much present and part of everyday life. It was an eye opening experience!
Armagh was right in the thick of it and was very much “bandit county” back then. I was very much the odd one out, being a “Brit” and non-catholic and picked up a whole new vocabulary. I learned a lot about Irish/British history from both sides of the coin, and discovered that things are rarely if ever, black and white.
Kim and I lived together in Hayes, West London, well that was before the huge 1990s recession and negative equity forced us to quit London and move out to a quiet country town in Oxfordshire, right next to the Gloucester and Wiltshire borders.
This was about the closest to London that we could afford to buy a decent two bedroomed house to raise our kids, and it was here our two girls started junior school, picking up a distinct West Country accent!
I loved the house we bought together, and the town we lived, it was peaceful, quiet and in an area full of history. Our neighbours were great and it was first our place together after moving out of my tiny flat in west London. It wasn’t easy though, as I had a 5 hour daily commute, given I needed to travel to Heathrow or Gatwick, and Kim was pretty isolated, stuck miles away from anywhere and the friends we had in London. Thankfully we moved a few years later to a house nestled on the edge of the Chiltern Hills in another beautiful historic town in South Buckinghamshire. This was much closer to my work. However, this is where things started to go sideways…. Our marriage only lasted a decade, and ended almost entirely as a by-product of my own immaturity and behaviour.
Despite a turbulent and acrimonious divorce (where I got hammered by the divorce courts), my ex and I kept in contact for the purpose of raising our two girls who I was lucky to see almost every weekend until they trotted off to university. This allowed me to be the best dad I could be, despite not being there for them full time.
In hindsight, I got exactly what I deserved with the lop-sided divorce settlement. It was the era of “Fathers For Justice”, but I have no real complaints, I was young enough to able to pick myself up, increase my earnings and build a career. I had chosen a life without Kim, and the old saying “you’ve made your bed- now lie in it” appeared to be a good fit. Plus, as I was to find out later, the universe planned its revenge by dishing out some painful karma in 2017, when the boot was well and truly on the other foot. What goes around, comes around!
Kim is now happily remarried and living up in Lincolnshire. We remain very much on speaking terms and even share the occasional joke on WhatsApp. However, we’ve both retained the phone “contact” nicknames we gave each other back in the day. I am “Pratt” in her phone contacts (no explanation needed) and she is “Osama” on mine (coz Bin Laden was equally impossible to negotiate with – back in the day).
We last met in the Spring of 2024, in what has got to be one of the most bizarre coincidences I’ve experienced in my life. Whilst solo travelling to Vienna , I literally walked past Kim and my youngest daughter whilst they were watching the horses in the Spanish Riding School. They were visiting the city as a birthday treat and none of us knew we’d be in the same Austrian Capital at the same time!