The Affair

In all this turmoil, I asked a young secretary called Sue from the Alcan office to go out with me. It was in the photocopy room, she was doing some filing and I was copying something of vital importance for the extruded aluminum (then aluminium) industry. I was nervous and asked her to go out with me for a drink one night. She asked me "what about my boyfriend?" - I just replied that he could come along if she really wanted. Initially she said she didn't know and then the next day she said Ok. This was very strange for me, I wasn't exactly used to any sort of joy in my life, perhaps there was some sort of catch.

The first night out was great. I'd been such an emotional wreck over the previous months and we just got on so well, chatting, drinking and laughing. I think it was in the back room of a pub called the Stags (or Rams) head on the corner of the main street in Southport. We both had a similar cruel sense of humour, did a lot of people watching, and the night just flew by. We walked along the promenade to the marina in the moonlight, and I can remember the clanking of mast ropes as we talked overlooking the sea.

She knew I was married and she had seen the fallout from the last few months, some days I rolled into work after sleeping in the car and it had been noticed in the office that I was a bit of a train wreck.