Loved and lost: Jenny Hill in 1974
Thousand World Media
Working as a cinema usherette in the late 60s and early 70s, Jenny Papps watched endless showings of classic film Love Story.
But as the shy teen sold ice-creams from a tray, her own love story was being written with more coincidences and romantic twists than any film script.
For above her in the projection room, beaming flickering film on to the silver screen, were the two men she would love, marry – and tragically lose.
Jenny, 61, says: “It was my first job and I felt self-conscious in my stripy pink uniform and pillbox hat as I showed mods and rockers to their seats by torchlight.
"But I’m so glad I worked at that cinema, because behind the scenes, fate was planning the plot of my life.”
Almost as soon as 16-year-old Jenny started work at the Classic Cinema, Stroud, Gloucestershire, she became friends with the handsome projectionists Rob and Bernard, who coincidentally shared the surname Hill.
Romance soon blossomed with Rob. Jenny says: “Rob was shy and so was I.
"We went out for drinks after the last showing and although it was all very innocent, we were very taken with each other.
"For my 17th birthday Rob gave me a necklace with a watch pendant, which were all the rage at the time.
"It was hand-painted with my favourite flowers – red roses – and was so beautiful, I was really touched.
“But a few weeks later Rob finished with me so I returned the pendant and said, ‘I don’t think I should have this any more’.
“We stayed friends, but by the time his new relationship broke up, I was dating Bernard.
"Somehow I knew Rob was a bit jealous, but it was too late. Bernard and I moved in together and married in 1976.
“Years later I heard that Rob lived in Bournemouth for a while.
"He came back to Gloucester, married, had three sons and then divorced.
But other than bumping into him in B&Q once, we never saw each other and only kept in touch sporadically.”
Jenny and Bernard, who became a long-distance lorry driver, settled in Stroud and shared 30 years of marriage.
Sadly, he was diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer in June 2005.
Jenny, who took time off work, nursed him until he passed away seven months later in January 2006, aged 72.
“It was a terribly sad time because Bernard and I had been happy and had a good life,” says Jenny.
“Seeing him suffer was harrowing. I discovered what mortality was and saw life differently after that.”
In March 2007, Jenny and a friend made a spontaneous decision to visit the bingo hall in Gloucester.
But finding it full they decided to go to the cinema instead. It was the start of an incredible turn of events.
Jenny says: “I said to my friend, ‘wouldn’t it be funny if Rob was working here?’.
"So we asked the lady on the door and we couldn’t believe it when she told us he was actually there.
"So we went up to the projectionist’s room for a cup of tea with Rob.
“It was a meeting I shall never, ever forget. We just clicked. Something really special happened and we both felt it.
"Seeing him again after all those years made me feel really warm inside, like putting on an old pair of gloves.
“After all this time, he lived only a mile from me. We weren’t going to let each other go – not for a second time.
"I know it sounds crazy, but from then on we both knew we’d be together for ever.”
Jenny’s instincts were right. Rob asked to see her again and they arranged to go out for drinks a few days later.
“I got dressed up, but as soon as I saw him on my doorstep I said, ‘I don’t really feel like going out, shall we just stay in and have a cup of tea?’.
"I was glad when he agreed. I think I just wanted him all to myself.”
Love re-ignited and four months later Rob and Jenny had moved in together.
One evening in her flat, Rob astounded Jenny with a gift from their romantic past.
Jenny says: “Rob said, ‘I’ve got something I gave to you a long time ago’ and from behind his back he presented the watch pendant from my 17th birthday. I was floored that he’d kept it all this time.
“That was Rob all over – he was so romantic. He said he’d burned a candle for me all that time.
"As soon as I saw the pendant again I burst into tears.”
During a day trip to York six months after reuniting, Rob bought a ruby and diamond ring and dropped to one knee in a restaurant to propose.
Jenny was thrilled. “I said ‘my darling, of course I’ll marry you!’. I’d met my soul mate again and I couldn’t believe my luck.
“My register office wedding to Bernard cost all of £36 and we had our reception in the skittle alley of a pub.
"Rob married his first wife in a register office. This time Rob and I wanted a dream wedding.”
On the crisp, sunny day of April 12, 2008, Jenny and Rob married surrounded by snowdrops and 80 guests in the Rococo Gardens, Painswick, Stroud.
The bride wore a rose-red dress and her watch pendant under her bra as her ‘something old’.
As a gift Rob gave Jenny a heart-shaped locket with, “I love you” engraved on the case.
Jenny wears it every day and it means more to her now even than it did on that blissful day.
For, only 10 months later, Rob was diagnosed with lung cancer.
“Rob had smoked for 40 years but gave up for me because I wouldn’t kiss him if he smelt of tobacco. But it was too late,” says Jenny.
“Even though the prognosis wasn’t good, I never gave up hope. Hope’s the only thing that keeps you going in a cancer battle.
"I’d seen Bernard go through cancer treatment and knew it would be extremely tough.
"But even throughout chemotherapy, when he was attached to a drip for almost eight hours and in a lot of pain, Rob didn’t complain once.
"In fact, he spent his time consoling and comforting me.
“He wanted to last until our anniversary on April 12, and he ordered red roses. I was glad he saw them.
"He died in my arms four days later.”
The minister who buried Bernard now presided over Rob’s funeral. There was standing room only at the church.
Jenny says: “The horribly stark truth that Rob had left me was sinking in.
"But I also knew, when a stream of sunlight flooded on to the red roses woven into his wicker coffin, that he was still with me.”
In her grief, Jenny gleans comfort from the fact Rob had such attentive care in his last days.
He wanted to die in the home he’d shared with Jenny and did so, thanks to help from Cotswold Care Hospice.
After he had died, the hospice also gave Jenny counselling.
She says: “The second year was much harder than the first because I felt so alone.
"One-to-one sessions helped me unburden myself and group sessions taught me I wasn’t the only one in the world feeling utterly bereft.”
Today, Jenny still becomes tearful when she talks or thinks of Rob.
But counselling has given her perspective and she is gleaning lessons from her experience.
Jenny says: “Seeing two husbands die of cancer hammers home the importance of checking yourself for symptoms because early detection could prevent heartache.
“Finding my first love Rob taught me that if you have a happy relationship, you should appreciate every minute of it.
"I feel hurt when people moan about their husbands or wives because I know how much they will mourn them when they are gone.
“I miss Rob so badly it’s a physical ache. But I also know I am incredibly lucky to have been so loved twice.
"I just wish my love story hadn’t had such a sad ending.”
But as the shy teen sold ice-creams from a tray, her own love story was being written with more coincidences and romantic twists than any film script.
For above her in the projection room, beaming flickering film on to the silver screen, were the two men she would love, marry – and tragically lose.
Jenny, 61, says: “It was my first job and I felt self-conscious in my stripy pink uniform and pillbox hat as I showed mods and rockers to their seats by torchlight.
"But I’m so glad I worked at that cinema, because behind the scenes, fate was planning the plot of my life.”
Almost as soon as 16-year-old Jenny started work at the Classic Cinema, Stroud, Gloucestershire, she became friends with the handsome projectionists Rob and Bernard, who coincidentally shared the surname Hill.
Romance soon blossomed with Rob. Jenny says: “Rob was shy and so was I.
"We went out for drinks after the last showing and although it was all very innocent, we were very taken with each other.
"For my 17th birthday Rob gave me a necklace with a watch pendant, which were all the rage at the time.
"It was hand-painted with my favourite flowers – red roses – and was so beautiful, I was really touched.
“But a few weeks later Rob finished with me so I returned the pendant and said, ‘I don’t think I should have this any more’.
“We stayed friends, but by the time his new relationship broke up, I was dating Bernard.
"Somehow I knew Rob was a bit jealous, but it was too late. Bernard and I moved in together and married in 1976.
“Years later I heard that Rob lived in Bournemouth for a while.
"He came back to Gloucester, married, had three sons and then divorced.
But other than bumping into him in B&Q once, we never saw each other and only kept in touch sporadically.”
Jenny and Bernard, who became a long-distance lorry driver, settled in Stroud and shared 30 years of marriage.
Sadly, he was diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer in June 2005.
Jenny, who took time off work, nursed him until he passed away seven months later in January 2006, aged 72.
“It was a terribly sad time because Bernard and I had been happy and had a good life,” says Jenny.
“Seeing him suffer was harrowing. I discovered what mortality was and saw life differently after that.”
In March 2007, Jenny and a friend made a spontaneous decision to visit the bingo hall in Gloucester.
But finding it full they decided to go to the cinema instead. It was the start of an incredible turn of events.
Jenny says: “I said to my friend, ‘wouldn’t it be funny if Rob was working here?’.
"So we asked the lady on the door and we couldn’t believe it when she told us he was actually there.
"So we went up to the projectionist’s room for a cup of tea with Rob.
“It was a meeting I shall never, ever forget. We just clicked. Something really special happened and we both felt it.
"Seeing him again after all those years made me feel really warm inside, like putting on an old pair of gloves.
“After all this time, he lived only a mile from me. We weren’t going to let each other go – not for a second time.
"I know it sounds crazy, but from then on we both knew we’d be together for ever.”
Jenny’s instincts were right. Rob asked to see her again and they arranged to go out for drinks a few days later.
“I got dressed up, but as soon as I saw him on my doorstep I said, ‘I don’t really feel like going out, shall we just stay in and have a cup of tea?’.
"I was glad when he agreed. I think I just wanted him all to myself.”
Love re-ignited and four months later Rob and Jenny had moved in together.
One evening in her flat, Rob astounded Jenny with a gift from their romantic past.
Jenny says: “Rob said, ‘I’ve got something I gave to you a long time ago’ and from behind his back he presented the watch pendant from my 17th birthday. I was floored that he’d kept it all this time.
“That was Rob all over – he was so romantic. He said he’d burned a candle for me all that time.
"As soon as I saw the pendant again I burst into tears.”
During a day trip to York six months after reuniting, Rob bought a ruby and diamond ring and dropped to one knee in a restaurant to propose.
Jenny was thrilled. “I said ‘my darling, of course I’ll marry you!’. I’d met my soul mate again and I couldn’t believe my luck.
“My register office wedding to Bernard cost all of £36 and we had our reception in the skittle alley of a pub.
"Rob married his first wife in a register office. This time Rob and I wanted a dream wedding.”
On the crisp, sunny day of April 12, 2008, Jenny and Rob married surrounded by snowdrops and 80 guests in the Rococo Gardens, Painswick, Stroud.
The bride wore a rose-red dress and her watch pendant under her bra as her ‘something old’.
As a gift Rob gave Jenny a heart-shaped locket with, “I love you” engraved on the case.
Jenny wears it every day and it means more to her now even than it did on that blissful day.
For, only 10 months later, Rob was diagnosed with lung cancer.
“Rob had smoked for 40 years but gave up for me because I wouldn’t kiss him if he smelt of tobacco. But it was too late,” says Jenny.
“Even though the prognosis wasn’t good, I never gave up hope. Hope’s the only thing that keeps you going in a cancer battle.
"I’d seen Bernard go through cancer treatment and knew it would be extremely tough.
"But even throughout chemotherapy, when he was attached to a drip for almost eight hours and in a lot of pain, Rob didn’t complain once.
"In fact, he spent his time consoling and comforting me.
“He wanted to last until our anniversary on April 12, and he ordered red roses. I was glad he saw them.
"He died in my arms four days later.”
The minister who buried Bernard now presided over Rob’s funeral. There was standing room only at the church.
Jenny says: “The horribly stark truth that Rob had left me was sinking in.
"But I also knew, when a stream of sunlight flooded on to the red roses woven into his wicker coffin, that he was still with me.”
In her grief, Jenny gleans comfort from the fact Rob had such attentive care in his last days.
He wanted to die in the home he’d shared with Jenny and did so, thanks to help from Cotswold Care Hospice.
After he had died, the hospice also gave Jenny counselling.
She says: “The second year was much harder than the first because I felt so alone.
"One-to-one sessions helped me unburden myself and group sessions taught me I wasn’t the only one in the world feeling utterly bereft.”
Today, Jenny still becomes tearful when she talks or thinks of Rob.
But counselling has given her perspective and she is gleaning lessons from her experience.
Jenny says: “Seeing two husbands die of cancer hammers home the importance of checking yourself for symptoms because early detection could prevent heartache.
“Finding my first love Rob taught me that if you have a happy relationship, you should appreciate every minute of it.
"I feel hurt when people moan about their husbands or wives because I know how much they will mourn them when they are gone.
“I miss Rob so badly it’s a physical ache. But I also know I am incredibly lucky to have been so loved twice.
"I just wish my love story hadn’t had such a sad ending.”
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