By Community Correspondent

Yvonne Martin experienced a powerful sense of coming full circle when she moved into Royal Star & Garter in High Wycombe in 2023.

The Home now stands on the very site where the 90-year-old once worked as a teenager — and where she first met the love of her life.

Reflecting ahead of Valentine’s Day, and 75 years after meeting Keith, the great-grandmother said: “Being at Royal Star & Garter brings back such joyful memories.”

Yvonne was just 15 when she began working as a filing clerk at engineering firm Broom & Wade in 1951. It was there she met 17-year-old Keith.

She recalled: “He was an engineering draftsman, and I used to walk through the drawing office with all the files.”

Keith soon made his feelings known. At the company’s Christmas celebration that year, he asked Yvonne to dance. Clearly keen to see her again, he turned up the following evening at another festive event.

Yvonne explained: “My mother worked for furniture manufacturers Parker Knoll, and they had their Christmas dance the following night. Keith must have heard that I was going, because he gate-crashed the party and asked me to dance again. And from then on, we were together.”

The young couple spent their lunch breaks sharing sandwiches in a nearby park, and in September 1956 they were married.

Keith later completed two years of National Service with the RAF, and once he returned, they began raising their family together.

After Keith passed away in 2023 and Yvonne’s health needs increased, she made the move to Royal Star & Garter. The charity offers compassionate care and support for veterans and their loved ones who are living with disability or dementia. It operates Homes in Solihull, Surbiton, High Wycombe and Worthing, and also runs community-based services such as Lunch Clubs, Day Care and a nationwide Telephone Friendship Service.

Yvonne’s relatives visit her regularly at the Home.

She said: “I miss my husband so much. But being here at Royal Star & Garter, on the very spot where I met my Keith, it makes me very happy. It brings back such joyful memories and I feel a special link to him.”

Valentine’s Day will be celebrated across Royal Star & Garter’s Homes.

Couples living together will enjoy private lunches complete with flowers and balloons. Residents whose partners live elsewhere will also be invited to share a romantic meal together.

Other residents will join in the celebrations too, with tea parties, live entertainment, heart-shaped chocolates and more planned.

For more information about Royal Star & Garter, its new services or to work at the Home, go to www.starandgarter.org/hw 

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