Long before internet dating was commonplace, Danielle found unexpected romance online. In 1997, she was working as a teacher in New York. “I was taking my class to Paris on a trip and my colleague posted a message on a French bulletin board to ask about the weather before we went.”
When they returned, her colleague told her someone had replied, and suggested that she contact him. “Peter had responded to say: ‘When in Paris, who cares what the weather is?’ She convinced me to write back and let him know how the trip had gone.”
Peter, who is originally from Essex, lived in London where he worked for a computer company. “I joined the bulletin board as I was learning French. I’d been intending to move to France,” he says. “When Danielle wrote back, I was confused at first because I had spoken to her colleague previously. But we got chatting and decided to exchange email addresses.”
Danielle says she immediately felt comfortable talking to him and enjoyed their online conversations. “Some of the things he asked made me really reflect. He asked questions about America, and it made me think about other people’s perspective of the United States.”
Before long, they were emailing several times a day. “We just slowly grew to know each other,” says Peter. “I found Danielle really engaging and I missed her when I wasn’t talking to her. Eventually I decided to phone her and we had some long calls.”
With the summer holidays approaching, Danielle made a spontaneous decision: she booked a ticket to London to visit Peter for his birthday. “My friends thought I was insane,” she says. When she told him, he felt “a bit shocked” and “a little hesitant at first”. “I was surprised someone would be crazy enough to book an air ticket without checking,” he says.
Despite his initial concerns, they got on brilliantly. “He cooked me pork chops for dinner as soon as I arrived and I was sold. He could cook and he was really nice,” she says. Peter says they thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company and he was “really sad” when it was time for her to leave. Knowing they wanted to see each other again, Peter booked a trip to visit Danielle in August. They became a long-distance couple, and visited each other when they could. At first, they had doubts about their future together, due to differing stances on religion. “I’m Catholic and he’s not religious,” says Danielle. “But in the end, we decided it didn’t matter because we liked each other so much. We agreed that if we had children, they would be raised Catholic.”
The next summer, Danielle came to England for longer and they got engaged at a Fourth of July party. “I proposed with a sparkler,” he says. They married that November, in Hereford. In July 1999, Peter’s US visa came through and he joined Danielle in New York, where he found a job as a school computer technician, while she continued to teach. Their two sons were born in 2001 and 2003.
In 2010 Danielle had breast cancer, followed by another cancer in 2018, due to the radiation therapy. “Peter was really supportive while I was unwell,” she says. “I couldn’t have asked for better.”
Peter says they always take what life throws at them and deal with it together. “There’s nothing I don’t love about Danielle. We have disagreements but they melt away instantly. Those countless hours back when we were long-distance dating helped because we came to really understand each other.”
Danielle is happy that Peter accepts her as she is. “He makes me laugh all the time. He goes with the flow and we love trying new things together.”
