Our story as briefly as I can make it is this: He was 19 and I was 22. We met in London in 1963 when Emmett visited the city for a weekend from Germany where he was doing his national service in the American Air Force. Bells didn't just ring, they clanged deafeningly.

Three weeks later he returned to London to spend two weeks with me and three weeks later I moved to Germany where he had secured me a job on his base. We spent six blissfully happy months there until I had to return to London. We were madly in love. However he was sent back to the US at the end of his service and we corresponded for two years. I never had the slightest doubt that he was THE ONE FOR ME. After two years, in 1966, we needed to see each other badly so I flew to the US and stayed with him and his widowed mother in Missouri. This is where the 'differences' began to show.

Emmett was pretty much a gorgeous-looking country boy, although highly intelligent, and I was a rather sophisticated Londoner. I scared him -- if I was to stay in Missouri we would have had to get married as I didn't have permission to work -- that was just too much for him at the time. I also felt that the 'back of beyond' area in which he lived would not satisfy me. He was now 23 and I was 25. It was too rural, the people were too unpolished, not my sort of place at all. I wanted to be with Emmett but not in Missouri.

Having contacts in New York I went there and secured my Green Card. However I was miserable and felt badly bruised and rejected. Foolishly, and very much on the rebound, I married someone else - it was a disaster although did produce my wonderful daughter. Two years later Emmett married a local widow. Another disaster.

I finally left my husband in New York and moved with my daughter back to London in 1980. Emmett finally left his wife in 1992 after spending several years living with her but not speaking to her. Somehow we always stayed in touch - letters and the occasional phone conversation, friendly, though, not romantic.

In 1997 Emmett's company sent him to Portugal for five months - we decided it was time to meet again. I was terrified of this meeting as I knew I was, and always had been, in love with him. I was so scared that he was only going to offer friendship and my heart would be broken yet again. Try as I might, and I did try, it was impossible for me to fall in love with anyone else. Anyway, no need to worry as he realised almost immediately that he had always loved me and we decided this time we were going to be together no matter what. We got married last October.

However, it is not problem free. There is a huge amount of love between us, but the cultural differences are, if anything, even more pronounced now than in 1966. Emmett married a rather ignorant Catholic high-school drop-out as he had made her pregnant and then, somewhat unwisely, fathered seven children in total with her. She had another two from her first marriage. Due to getting married, the need to support his family etc., Emmett did not complete his college education and the result today is that he is a senior mechanic rather than an engineer. Had we remained together I would have ensured that he obtained a degree.

The limitations placed upon us by Emmett's job are quite a strain. His job entails constant travel throughout the US; he can be and is sent away with no appreciable notice at all. I travel with him -- although we have a base in Grand Rapids, Michigan we are hardly ever there. I find this extremely hard.

I am a very social creature, I love giving formal dinner parties, socialising with friends, going to the theatre, concerts etc., Emmett is happy to do these things with me but it's hard to find good theatre in the middle of, say, Indiana. Dinner parties are out as we don't know anyone in the places we go to. I have little to do all day long and miss my active London life. Also, I have found that the few people we have invited aren't very satisfactory guests. Their conversation and food tastes are limited. This is very much a cultural and educational problem. As Emmett has stayed on the factory floor he tends to mix with other factory workers. I do love Emmett, but I'm afraid I don't love his co-workers.

One solution would be to take a job which didn't entail travel - not so easy. Emmett is 56 which makes it difficult regardless of what the law may say, and is paid very much more in his present position because of the non-stop travel than he would be in a job which didn't require it. His wife was very vindictive over the divorce, although they had not been living together for years, and managed to keep all his property, 240 acres and a large house. At least it was a clean-break settlement and we do not have to pay alimony.

We need the present salary in order to try to save for our old age. We own no home in the US and see no possibility of doing so at the moment. We rent a small apartment in Grand Rapids. I have an apartment in London, which is presently rented out, but it doesn't amount to much. I cannot provide for Emmett in his retirement.

I have difficulty in coming to terms with him having seven children with his first wife, a limited woman whom he never loved, signing all his inherited property over to her, and not obtaining a degree which might have increased his marketability and salary.

It does cause friction from time to time. Mainly we are happy and fine, but when the loneliness hits me, the lack of security, just missing my possessions which are still in London, the lack of social contacts, it is very hard to deal with. We manage by being positive, we deeply love each other and mean to make this work and as much as possible make up for the lost years. We will survive, we will sort these problems somehow but they are truly taxing. At the moment we are in San Antonio for ten weeks and it is lovely here - this is the first place I have liked since I joined Emmett in the US in October 1997, the other towns have been fairly uninteresting and dismal.

I've taken to walking in the country lanes for up to 2 hours each morning and this has helped enormously.

Family, friends and others have all reacted positively to our story. They are moved by the obvious "love story" and are very supportive. However my contacts with my family and friends now are via email and telephone.