‘I cried after saying goodbye to my Butlins lover – 33 years later we were married’

For Sue Palmer-Conn and Bill they thought their romance came to a end with their summer job at Butlins, but decades later – one message led them back to each other

Most people either marry their first love… or they don’t. They move on, build new lives, and often never cross paths again. But for Sue Palmer-Conn and Bill, what started as a teenage summer romance at Pwllheli Butlins in 1971 didn’t end on that bridge – although it took 33 years, missed letters and one unforgettable message for fate to bring them back together.

The then-teens met during a 10-week season working as lifeguards and they hit it off immediately. They spent every spare moment together, but the moments that really stayed with Sue were the quiet ones at the end of the day. “We were inseparable,” Sue told the Mirror. “That summer we just hit it off and talked about everything.”

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They’d share hot chocolate and a doughnut, winding down after their shift – but like all summer jobs, it eventually had to end. “He was driving away, and I was standing there on the bridge waving to him, tears were rolling down my cheeks,” she said. “I hoped I would see him again.”

Sue returned to Butlins the following two years, hoping she may be reunited with him again. But he had started a sandwich course and couldn’t return. Still, she remained hopeful even writing him letters. But he never got the letters. “His mother intercepted them,” Sue said. “She didn’t want him distracted by another girl – he’d already failed his A-levels once over love.”

And just like that – they never saw or heard from each other for decades. They both moved on. Sue stayed in Liverpool, became a teacher, married a university student who became a dentist, and had two sons. After 25 years of marriage, the relationship ended when, as Sue puts it, “I got a PhD and he got a girlfriend”. They divorced in 2001.

Meanwhile, Bill had moved to London, trained as an accountant, married, had four children and divorced in 2002.

It may not have felt like it at the time, but those endings quietly cleared the path for a new beginning. Sue joined the website Friends Reunited, putting in her profile: “old, free and single.” Around the same time, Bill performed in a local production and one of the songs was We’ll Meet Again. “In Butlins on a Friday night, all the Redcoats line up at the back of the stage and we’d link arms and sing We’ll Meet Again,” Sue added.

That memory triggered something in Bill. He searched for Sue and found her. “Ho-de-ho, fancy you remembering me,” he wrote. “Hi-di-hi, oh, fancy you remember,” Sue replied.

From there, everything changed. By Sunday, they’d moved to phone calls. “We talked and talked, it was amazing how many times our life paths had crossed,” Sue said. “We talked morning, noon and night after that.”

Then on Thursday, while on the phone to Bill, Sue received a delivery at work. “There was a bouquet of 33 red roses, and it said: You’re my first, my last, my everything – one for every year I’ve missed you.”

A few weeks later, they reunited face to face, at the old camp back at the same bridge where Sue once stood in tears. “We met up on Valentine’s Day and that’s where he proposed,” she added.

At that moment, it didn’t feel like 33 years had passed. “It felt as if he’d gone out for a paper,” she said. “It wasn’t even a question – I said yes.”

Bill later asked her mum and her sons for permission to marry her. Nine months later, they tied the knot and in their wedding they danced to You’re My First, My Last, My Everything.

Today, Sue is a divorce coach and bestselling author of ‘Plan the Marriage, Not Just the Wedding: Essential Conversations You Must Have Before the Big Day’. “You have to get to know them as a friend, get to know all their ins and outs before you actually get married – no nasty surprises,” Sue said.

She believes their love stood the test of time because their friendship came first. “We talked and talked in the months between getting in touch and getting married. There was nothing we didn’t know.” she said “You’ve got to like somebody before you love them.”

Now 21 years married, Sue hopes their story reminds people that second chances are real and it’s never too late for love. “We defied the odds. After 33 years, we picked up where we left off – we’ve been married 21 years this November,” she said.