Wrong number led to our romance
I MET Thomas when I dialled the wrong number and he answered the phone. You could say that we just clicked.
It was 1952 and I was working in a bread factory in Mornington Crescent, North London.
I had to ring round to take orders, but by mistake I called Thomas at his office in Covent Garden, where he was a salesman for a large wholesale fruit merchant. He teased me about
how much bread he wanted to buy, but I didn’t mind.
After that, we talked once a week for ages. Friends told me to be careful, but we eventually met up at Charing Cross one Saturday night for a successful blind date.
Following that, there were fortnightly dates at the London Palladium, seeing stars such as Brenda Lee and Billy King. Thomas used to get free tickets thanks to his work.
He lived in Kent and I was in Highgate, North London, so we spent a lot of time drinking cuppas in railway tearooms — a bit like Brief Encounter. After we married in 1954, we raised our two children, Sandra and Keith, in Barnehurst, Kent.
Thomas had worked at Covent Garden since the age of 14 in 1945 and, apart from two years’ National Service with the RAF, he stayed there until the company he worked for went into liquidation when he was 62.
He was heartbroken at the time, but went on to have an active retirement helping others through the Red Cross and the League of Friends, providing care and comfort to hospital patients, visitors and staff.
On his rounds delivering newspapers to the wards, he loved to stop to talk to people and always tried to make them feel a bit better.
THoMAS Kenneth Vincent, born September 28, 1929; died May 30, 2016, aged 86.