“We’d come from the German winter, which was cold and miserable,” says Axel. In 1998, they visited friends in Australia, which sparked their decision to move across the world. Erika became a graphic designer in Düsseldorf, while Axel began working in IT, and later set up his own company. “My mum didn’t think we were going to do it.” But in October that year, they went ahead with the wedding and moved to Bonn, where Axel had an apartment. “His mum thought I was pregnant at first,” says Erika. They told their families, who were surprised by the news. “We’ve always asked ourselves why we chose to get married rather than live together and neither of us really knows,” Axel says. Then one day, in February 1990, they were sitting in a McDonald’s in London when they made the decision to get married. It would take all night to get there,” she remembers. “It was a train to Dover, then a ferry and another train. A couple of weeks later, she returned to Germany to see him, and they started a long-distance relationship. Shortly afterwards, Axel came to visit her in London. ‘There was something between us’ … Erika and Axel in Germany, 1990.Įrika went back to university and broke up with her boyfriend.
