(58) A middle-aged man´s wife leaves him and he then becomes involved with a girl called Martine

On the afternoon of June 25th 1990 I thought of a Plymouth businessman I knew.
Ken Butt had divorced some years earlier when his wife had left him for another man.

I had met up with him again in London in August 1989, when he was about fifty and accompanied by a German lady quite a bit younger than himself.
They had met some years after his wife’s departure.
Try as I would, I could not recall the girl’s name.

A couple of hours later I saw a TV ad for life insurance company Guardian Royal Exchange.

It consisted of a middle aged man giving a monologue about how his first wife had left him, some years ago, for another man.
He then mentioned that he had gone on to meet, and become involved with, a girl called Martine.
That jogged my memory and I recalled that this was the name of Mr Butt’s new lady.
Previously all I had been able to remember was that it was something like "Maxine".

That was certainly the first time that I had seen the advert.