Terry and Daphne have lived at Audley Stanbridge Earls since early 2024. Married 28 years, Terry shares the story of how he and his beautiful wife first met.
We first met when I called on Daphne at her office in Ashford Middlesex in October 1994. I was a salesman working for United Airlines Cargo and she was running a freight forwarding company. I was a single man at the time and not looking for love but when I first saw Daphne I was immediately attracted to her. My problem was how do I progress this. I have never been a chatter up of girls, so I invited Daphne to a company customer function at Kempton Park racecourse. This was a dinner dance type of event. She accepted my invite and I offered to pick her up from her house in Bisley Surrey which she said yes to.
What I didn’t tell her was that at these types of functions our Sales Manager always insisted we dress up and “entertain” our customers at some point during the function. That time it was Valentine's Day and the boss suggested the sales team dress up as gangsters! We all trooped into the local fancy dress shop and were kitted out with black suits, white shirts, black ties, black shoes, spats and a homburg hat. The icing on the cake was that we were each given a replica machine gun. So, I arrived at her house duly dressed as an Al Capone look-alike. I looked ridiculous and poor Daphne was truly shocked.
At this point let me say I didn’t carry the machine gun to her door, it was left in my car to be used later! We had a lovely evening and all went well, even though at the end of our entertaining the customers from the stage singing The Ballad of Bonnie & Clyde we hoisted our replica machine guns and shot all our customers... Daphne being one of them. Despite this, we planned to meet again and when we did, our love blossomed... who said crime doesn’t pay?
