How a passing remark changed my life

Isn’t it strange how sometimes just someone’s passing remark can change your whole life? When I was in my early 20s I was living with my mother in Bognor Regis and taking drama lessons. I had ambitions to go on to drama school which never materialized, but that’s another story. My drama teacher was an examiner for the LAMDA examinations and one evening he told me how he went to take the exams in Cardiff and travelled over the new Severn bridge. He described driving over it on a misty summer morning and made it sound quite magical.

A few years later my boyfriend and I bought a camper van and decided to tour North Wales. We were planning to go via Gloucester, but when I saw the sign for the Severn bridge, I had to go over it. It was dark, so we stayed the night in a layby and travelled over it the next morning. It was just such a thrilling experience as my drama teacher had described.

Once on the other side we took the first turning north to join our original route and so discovered the Lower Wye Valley. We were both totally entranced. We stayed a night there and another one on the way back. Two years later we returned there for our honeymoon.

When we both found ourselves unemployed in London a year later we decided to move there. We couldn’t find a place and a job actually in the area we loved but settled fairly near in Herefordshire. If it hadn’t been for my drama teacher I may never have found this place.

I did tell him later that it was because of his words that we went over the bridge that day and how it changed our lives, but I wonder how often that happens and we never find out. We may have changed the whole lives of someone we didn’t know well and never know it.

A photo I took from Tintern station on a recent visit to the Lower Wye Valley

Found this one at Webshots