peter
“When I was in my early twenties I went to Iran and fell in love with a Persian Architect. Now I’m a widow and have no children. My husband died very young, and I could never find a man quite like him… I mean, I kissed a lot of frogs but none of them ever transformed. I find men of my age have difficulties with independent women. And hell I am one of them! I have my own home, my own car, my own activities. I am not a Sunday roast and ironed shirts kinda’ woman. No! I lost my mother when I was only 21 because she married the wrong one. I decided that I won’t make the same mistake. Losing my mother made me want to travel as far as I could from Ireland but I didn’t have any money so I applied to be an air hostess. I got trained by AerLingus and was hired by Iran Air based in Teheran. I spent a little over two years there. I was young and we were working very hard so we didn’t really have time for dating, but one day, one of my colleges said she going to meet Ali, and if I wanted to go with her, as Ali has a friend. I said: ‘Well, okay…’ It was love at first sight. I have never seen such a beautiful man in my life. He was intelligent and kind. He was Persian, but not religious, and the greatest feminist I have ever met. Our relationship was based on equality and respect. He was a manager of a very large site in Teheran, but because of the pressure of the Islamic Republic it was way too much stress to handle and he suddenly died of a heart attack at the age of 43. We had only a little over a year together, and it may seem like a short love story but it’s kept me going for the last 30 years.”