THE GREATEST LOVE OF ALL

Forget the romantic partners in your life this Valentine’s Day, it’s time to celebrate the unconditional love of friends…

‘Divorce brought us closer’ Amanda Gardiner, 52, lives in Yalding, Kent.

I can still remember the day I met my best friend Helen Turner around 15 years ago. Sitting in a pub in Yalding, the small village where we both lived, we shouted for our daughters at the same time. ‘Great choice!’ I laughed, noting that they both had the same name. Swapping polite small talk about our children and husbands, we soon said goodbye and went our separate ways. We continued to bump into each other around the village, in the park and in the pub, but we only ever exchanged pleasantries.

Then in 2016, our entire village arranged a skiing trip together to France. Helen took a little tumble on the slopes and seeing she wasn’t hurt, I couldn’t help but giggle. She laughed at herself, too, and after that we became more than just acquaintances. Back home after the trip, we started meeting up for coffee and chatted while our kids played together.

But it wasn’t until December 2017 that we really became close. My marriage fell apart and I felt like the only future for me was a miserable, lonely one. That’s when Helen, then 51, showed up on my doorstep, takeaway in hand. ‘You can get through this,’ she told me firmly. She’d been through her own divorce just months before and I needed to hear from someone who’d not only been through it and survived, but thrived. Endlessly positive, she always had me snorting with laughter, even when I thought it was impossible to feel happy again. In a funny way, divorce brought us closer together.