They had tickets and knew where they were going but that didn’t stop these travellers arriving at another unexpected destination – the altar.
Here are three couples who went from a chance meeting on a coach or bus trip, to enjoying a lifelong journey together…
Jackie and Tim
Tim Stevenson shudders as he thinks what might not have been when got his coach from London to Birmingham on July 8, 1983 – exactly 40 years ago today.
Then aged 23, the medical student from Northern Ireland had finished a shift at Hammersmith Hospital and was off to spend the weekend with his brother.
He recalls: “I got there just as the coach was about to depart, and it was full – apart from one seat.
“I remember thinking maybe I should wait for the next coach so I’d have more room to spread out.”
Just as the driver began preparing to start the journey, Tim decided to take the empty seat but says he was initially too tired to make small talk with the pretty woman sitting next to him.
“I was just looking forward to relaxing and not speaking to anyone,” he remembers.
“But I noticed she was reading a sheet of music so I asked about it. She told me she was teaching music. The conversation between us just flowed very naturally.”
The couple chatted all the way up to Birmingham and in another twist of fate, due to a lack of traffic, the coach was 30 minutes early when it pulled at the
coach station.
Tim recalls: “Jackie was waiting for her friend, and I was waiting for my brother. There were no mobile phones back then to let them know, so Jackie suggested that we go to a pub.
“I found out Jackie lived very close in North London.”
They went on a few dates before Tim finished his placement and had to return to Dublin to finish his studies. They kept up a long-distance romance, seeing each other for half-term breaks and long weekends.
Tim proposed four months later in Paris and they were married on September 1, 1984, at St Dyfnog Church, Llanrhaeadr, in North Wales, where Jackie’s family lived.
Now both 63 and living in Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex, they are parents to James, 36, Laura, 33, and Harry, 30, and have three grandchildren – twin girls Quinn and Willow, aged two and one-year-old Charlie.
Tim, who worked as a GP, says: “I knew Jackie was the one for me.” Jackie, a teacher, says: “I fancied him instantly. Every time he sees a National Express coach, he’ll talk about the day we met.”
Last year Tim and Jackie went to see The Divine Comedy perform in Brighton, and lead singer Neil Hannon dedicated his legendary song about the coach company to the couple.
Joanne and Simon
Like most passengers sitting next to an empty seat, Joanne Jones wasn’t best pleased when someone eventually took it.
The 24-year-old nurse was on the M1, on her way home to Crawley, in West Sussex, from Manchester – where she had been working – when Simon asked if she could move her bag so he could sit down.
Simon, 26, was heading to Gatwick on that fateful day in 1989, to take a flight for a Spanish holiday.
Neither said a word until the coach hit delays and an announcement was made over the PA system.
She recalls: “Simon was on his Walkman and listening to Madonna’s Like A Prayer. When the driver made the announcement, Simon asked me what he said. So we got chatting...”
At journey’s end they swapped addresses. Joanne remembers: “I honestly thought that was the last I would hear from him.” So she was astonished when, a few days later, she got a postcard from Spain suggesting: “Let’s meet up when I’m back.”
The couple got together shortly afterwards and married five years later, in 1994, at Worth church, in Crawley.
On their 25th anniversary, Joanne called National Express, which arranged for them to celebrate on a vintage coach, just like the one that united them.
Now 58 and 60, Joanne and Simon, who live in Whaley Bridge, Derbys, have two children Sara, 27, and Ben, 25.
Joanne adds: “I didn’t think it at the time but I am very lucky that Simon made me move my bag. It just goes to show, you never know what’s round the corner.”
Gail and Matt
Single mum Gail Elwell had been on her own for four years when she boarded the 102 bus from Torquay to Bristol after a holiday with her eight-year-old son Ben in the summer of 2003.
Student Matt, who was on his way to Newport University, in South Wales, hardly noticed at first when she took the empty seat next to him.
Gail, 50, recalls: “I remember asking him to move his bag so I could sit down next to him and keep an eye on my son who was sitting opposite. He just grunted. I thought, ‘What a rude man!’”
Although not the greatest of first impressions, Gail’s interest in Matt was suddenly piqued when he answered a call on his mobile.
She remembers: “I thought he had a lovely voice. Anyway, we got chatting and never stopped.”
They both changed coaches at Bristol but, although they had exchanged numbers, Matt sat in a different seat in the next bus.
Speech therapist Matt, 40, recalls: “I guess I was trying to play it cool. I knew I liked her as soon as we got to Bristol and made sure I got her to write her number on a piece of paper, which I still have!”
After a whirlwind four-month, long-distance romance, Matt left Torquay and moved in with Gail and Ben in Pontypridd. The couple married on September 11, 2007 in Kittila, Lapland, after deciding they wanted a wedding as unusual as how they met.
This year, the couple celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary. On the trip that brought the pair together, Gail says: “The night before, I remember eating at the hotel restaurant with Ben and just looking around at all the families and couples, feeling very sad and thinking ‘I wish someone would love me and my son’.
“The next morning was such a rush to get to the station, my hair was a mess, and I had bean stains on my jumper from the hotel breakfast!
“I thought ‘Oh well, nobody is going to be looking at me; I’m going to be on a coach!’ But that day, I found myself sitting next to my soul mate.”
