The 1980s

Between November 1982 and July 1985, when I left my position at Singapore Airlines, we managed to sync our schedules to meet up in various parts of the world, Hong Kong, Dubai, Bahrain, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Paris and of course, Singapore.

Our first holiday together was in Bali, he having done some work first in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Anton's father died in December 1984. That Christmas we were planning to meet in Honolulu. Unfortunately it didn't materialise. Upon his father's death, Anton found it difficult to remain in the business with his half-brother Tom, so he decided to start up on his own in July 1985. 

One of the first places he decided to visit was New Zealand. We ​called in at his brother David's in Sydney and had a crazy time there with David and his business partner Ian, who enjoyed drinking Castlemaine XXXX Beer. As it was winter time and the tree had no leaves, we decided to put the empty cans on the branches and called it the '4X Tree'.

As I was born in London, it posed no difficulty for me to live and work in the UK. In October 1985, I packed my bags and left Singapore for a new life with Anton in London.  As his mother lived in North London at the time, we decided to live in the area to be near her. I found a job as an office administrator for an insurance company in London shortly after I settled in November and Anton set about getting his orders that he had picked up over the last months in New Zealand, Hongkong, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and Indonesia. As I had an accounting background, I decided to manage the book-keeping for his business.

On 29th February 1988, I asked Anton to marry me. So we got married on the auspicious day of 8th August 1988 (8-8-88). According to the Chinese, the word 8 sounds like the word prosperity and is considered a lucky number.