After meeting in then-Zaire in the 1980s, Steve Sherwood and Martha Meares became good friends. But when she planned to leave for England, he decided he wanted something more

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It was 1986, I was 26, had been travelling for two years, and was making my way through Africa. I was camping in the grounds of a run-down hotel, the only camp site in Kisangani, a city in what was then known as Zaire. On my first day in town I asked when the next River Congo ferry would leave. Tomorrow, they said.

Overland trucks would arrive and spend two to three days in town. A truck travelling from Kenya to the UK came, and its passengers put their stools in a circle to eat dinner. I asked to sit with them. Martha from Sydney sat beside me on the last spare stool. We spent most of that night chatting and laughing and got on really well.