John

I had been engaged once to Lisette a few years earlier, before I knew my London friends, but I broke it off, as it just did not work out well. Certainly, I had no clue, or idea that this beautiful Swiss blond would one day be my wife.


Martin Stern

Martin and I were chatting in his front garden and whilst deep in conversation, I suddenly realised I was alone, Martin had spotted Trudy walking past his house and had left me to chat up this extremely attractive long-legged girl.

I should point out that Martin was always the one to pick up the most gorgeous girls, whenever as a group of fellows we went to a discotheque 'looking for talent' as we called it.

Martin within moments would be the first to be with some lovely girl.

The rest of us after a while and a few drinks, would give up (as all the best-looking girls were already with partners) and come back to my flat to play Bridge. Martin never joined us!

Learning to play Bridge was enjoyable, we never had any arguments, and we all owed a lot to John Samuels, who was by far the best player and who in a nice way, explained what any of us did wrong. He was able to remember every card played right from the beginning and by whom, which I found to be remarkable!

Martin had persuaded Trudy that we would take her and her girlfriend (that she was on the way to meet), to go to the famous Carnaby Street. So that was how we first met, but I later learned that Trudy had seen me before, in Martin's front drive playing 'Jokari', this is a game where a hard rubber ball is attached to a box with a long elastic.

It was a good trainer for playing Squash, one can play alone, as I was, when unknown to me Trudy had walked past and apparently liked what she saw (although she had only seen me from behind). This had happened a long time before the day we met, Trudy was an Au-pair with a family further up the road and often walked past but had never seen me again until then.

We ended up as lovers and met up every weekend after that. However, Trudy had to return to Switzerland, having been in London for a year and I had decided marriage was not possible. I was wrong, but it took us four years to eventually marry. Before we had met, Trudy had done a two year jewellery apprenticeship at Sutter and qualified, and then became the manageress of Koecke Goldsmith shop also in Winterthur, before she went as an Au-pair to London to learn English.