Right person, wrong timing? Londoners reflect on their ones-that-got-away
Peter, 83, thinks of her often, from his care home in Surbiton; the ex-girlfriend who got away because he wasn't ready for marriage when she was. She's been married to another man now, for 45 years, and he's had to accept that. But that doesn't stop him wondering "what if?".
June, 88, is more skeptical about timing in a relationship. "If the right person comes along, then nothing can get in the way of true love," she says of her late husband Charles, who she was married to for 23 years. She's been on her own ever since, and never thought of looking for anyone else because he was the one — and she believes he would have been whenever she met him, because they were soulmates.
Lesley, 69, a retired nurse from , disagrees. "Timing is crucial to a relationship, I think," she says of her relationship with Alan, 71, a retired bus driver, who she married for a second time during their 50-year love story after divorcing five years previously because they weren't ready. "We met when we were very young, and even though we loved each other, it wasn't the right time for us. I think we had to grow up; find
