Section:GDN 12 PaGe:4 Edition Date:190827 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 26/8/2019 16:26 cYanmaGentaYellowbla

• The Guardian
  4 Tuesday 27 August 2019

Clare and Ryan Moulder,

who are in their 40s, met

at work in 1997. They

live in Slough and have

two children

O

n Clare’s fi rst day at work 22

years ago, Ryan was the fi rst

person she was introduced

to. They were at the Mars

confectionery company, in the

wrapping area of the factory

that made Twix bars. Clare was 24; Ryan

was 20. “He’s 6ft 3in, dark and handsome,”

she says. The head-to-toe white overalls

look good on men, she adds. “I thought:

‘Wow!’ straight away. But I was at work and

I thought: ‘I’m here to do a job, not fi nd my

potential husband.’”

Did Ryan notice her? “It’s a very male-

dominated area , and seeing a young lady walk

into the factory, and especially one so pretty,

yeah, it was a big day. I remember being taken

aback at how beautiful she was.”

Clare smiles. “I don’t remember you

saying that.”

Although they were part of a friendly, close-

knit team, the couple found it hard to get time

together. Their break times rarely coincided.

On top of that, Clare says her factory outfi t

• hairnet, hard hat, steel-toe-capped boots,
  white overalls – was not the most fl attering.
  “I had to do my best every day to look as good
  as I possibly could,” she says. “My eyebrows
  would be done, although I couldn’t wear too
  much make up.”
  She says he was oblivious to the fact she
  liked him. “I would try to engineer it so we
  were on the same break pattern, and I’d try to
  organise lots of social events,” she says. Did
  he like her? “I did,” says Ryan. “But I’m not a
  very macho, chase-the-ladies sort of person.”
  It took about six months of Clare “being quite
  underhand”, she says, before they got together
  on a night out, and Ryan says they have been
  pretty much inseparable ever since.
  They moved in together six months later

and worked together on the factory fl oor

for another two years. “You spend a lot of

time with those people who are working

the same shifts as you,” says Ryan. “It was

young love and we didn’t want that space

• we were quite happy spending all our
  time together.”
  What did they like about each other? “The
  most important thing is our sense of humour
  is the same,” says Ryan. And their values,
  Clare adds. At work “ you fi nd a lot of people
  who share the same values. I think that was
  the thing that has kept us together, and at
  work as well – it feels like it’s all wrapped up
  in our life.”
  They are both still at Mars, a company
  they love, where employees are called
  Martians. Clare did a degree and now works in
  marketing; Ryan is in factory planning. “There
  are days when I won’t see him at all, and there
  are days when I’ll see him in the canteen,” she
  says. “It never really gets too much.” And they
  rarely talk about work at home, he says.
  Do they eat chocolate all day? Ryan
  laughs and says he has type 1 diabetes , so
  has to watch his sugar intake. Working in a
  chocolate factory does have its advantages,
  however. “I’ve had a couple of low blood-sugar
  attack s, and chocolate is one of the things you
  can use to fi ght them .” Their house is
  a magnet for trick or treaters at Halloween,
  says Clare.
  Is she surprised that she and Ryan are
  still together, more than two decades on?
  “It sounds so trite, but when you know, you
  know,” she says. “My dad used to say: ‘You and
  Ryan are cut from the same cloth.’ ”
  A few weeks ago, Ryan’s aunt died. She
  got Ryan the job at Mars, and worked for
  the company for a remarkable 73 years.
  They were close. “I was trying to be strong
  for my dad, keep a stiff upper lip, and then
  at the end when everyone was fi ltering
  out after the funeral, Clare came to see me
  and I broke down,” he says, “because it
  was Clare. She’s my person, the one I share
  everything with. You know that person means
  everything to you.”
  Interviews by Emine Saner
  Want to share your story? Email howwemet@
  theguardian.com

How we met ‘He was dark and

handsome. But I was at work to

do a job, not fi nd a husband’

Love and sex

‘I should have

told my dad

I hated him’

Parents and

children don’t

always get along.

But what does it

take to sever all

ties with your

mum or dad?

By Lizzie Cernik

A s a child,

Laura craved unconditional love.

But instead of cuddles and family

outings, her lasting memories are

of bitter rows. “My mum never

wanted children,” she says. “She

told me that the only reason she

didn’t get an abortion was she found

out about the pregnancy too late.”

Laura’s dad left when she was very

young, which she thinks made

her mother resentful. “She had to

stay and be the responsible mum,

which she hated. On one occasion

my grandparents took me away and

I remember thinking: this is what

family should be like.”

The relationship dissolved

completely when Laura was a

teenager. “Mum’s fi rst love was

always men, and when I was 15 she

moved to Africa for a boyfriend

without telling me.” It’s something

she found impossible to forgive,

especially as there has never been

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