'I chose the wrong man' - Dartford bride-to-be thanks the internet for Henry VIII wedding (From News Shopper)

'I chose the wrong man' - Dartford bride-to-be thanks the internet for Henry VIII wedding

3:25pm Saturday 23rd March 2013 in News By Sam Christie

WHEN Dartford’s Debi Letchford split from the love of her life in 1987 to move more than 80 miles away, she gave up hope of ever seeing him again.

Back then there were no mobile phones, never mind Facebook or Twitter. She did not have a contact number and upped sticks with just a framed photo as a souvenir.

The pair met while working together at shop-front selling business Vanguard Aluminum in Powder Mill Lane, Dartford, and hit it off straight away. Debi was the receptionist, Brian Palmer a shop fitter.

But they reluctantly went their separate ways to start a new life apart.

The 47-year-old told News Shopper: “I regretted it the day I did it, I thought there was no going back.

“In the 80s there were no mobile phones, no internet - it was very hard to find someone when you leave it longer and longer."

Debi married her partner at the time who she lived with in Reading but deep down knew she had “chosen the wrong man”.

The keen football fan divorced and went about desperately trying to get back in touch with Brian.

She spent weeks frantically flicking through the phone book before eventually turning to social networking site Friends Reunited as the lost throw of the dice.

“There were seven Brian Palmer’s, he did not have a profile photo,” she said smiling. “It was a guess.”

“I said ‘are you Brian who used to work at Vanguard and your middle name’s Leonard?’. He hates his middle name.”

A year-and-a-half passed and Debi had all but given up hope. Then all of a sudden on September 23, 2008, the day before her birthday all her birthdays and christmas’s came at once.

“I couldn’t believe it,” she said.

They met up two weeks later and have never looked back. It turned out Brian had also remarried and divorced during their 20-years apart. 

Speaking of their reunion date, she said: “I thought I was having a heart attack.”

Now the happy couple, who live in Barham Road, are engaged and busy planning their wedding after Brian, 57, proposed during their holiday to Kos.

The pair are set to tie the knot on September 21 at Henry VIII’s Manor Gatehouse in Dartford – the same date Brian’s brother and sister both married on.

The blushing bride-to-be says her story can be a lesson to others about the “power of the internet” and insists the pair have never had a row in five years.

She said: “Don’t give up on your dreams because they can come true.”

Following the ceremony they will be jetting out to Egypt for their honeymoon.