Love by Facebook: Hugh Forsythe and Maureen Wallace tied the knot after more than 40 years apart

Couple wed 42 years after being reunited via the social networking site

A delighted widower told today how he wed his teenage sweetheart 42 years after she dumped him - by tracking her down on Facebook.

Determined Hugh Forsythe, 60, was heartbroken when Maureen Wallace ended their four-month relationship in 1970, and the couple went on to lead separate lives.

But through a chance meeting in the summer of 2011 with a distant relative, Mr Forsythe learned that Maureen had 'divorced a man named Stewart, but kept the name'.

The grandfather from Port Glasgow, Scotland, said: 'I just thought ‘that’s good enough for me’ - and that was the start of the chase.

'I’d never forgotten Maureen over the years - she was my first love and I wasn’t going to let her slip away again.'

His search took him to Facebook, where he sent messages to dozens of ‘Maureen Stewarts’ - before he finally got the reply he had been dreaming of.

It read: 'Are you the Hugh Forsythe who had a brother in Barassie and went with a girl from Barassie?'


Love by Facebook: Hugh Forsythe and Maureen Wallace tied the knot after more than 40 years apart

Overjoyed Mr Forsythe replied: 'Yes Maureen, it’s me' and the couple started courting - going to places they went to when they were teenagers in 1970.

And after a whirlwind romance the couple got hitched just before Christmas.

Maureen said: 'We’re so lucky to be given a second chance. Not many people get that.

'So much has happened in all those years, good and bad. It’s amazing we still get on and have so much in common.'

Love first blossomed between the couple in the seaside town of Troon in South Ayrshire back in the summer of 1970.

But it was Maureen, now 62 and a retired hairdresser, who ended the relationship with Hugh when they were just teenagers.

He feared that since he was joining the Glasgow ‘puffers’ - steamboats taking supplies to the Hebrides - she would hold him back in his sea-going career.

She said: 'We met at a Saturday night dance. He was in with his brother and sister-in-law.

'My pal fancied him but I thought ‘To hell with you hen, I’m getting in there’. And that was that.


The happy couple pictured on their wedding day shortly before Christmas

'We were together for four months then I dumped him. I loved him but I didn’t tell him that. I called it off because he was at sea.'

After the split, the pair went on to marry other people, Mr Forsythe to Anne and the then Miss Wallace to Dugald Stewart, but often thought of each other.

Mr Forsythe moved back to Port Glasgow and had three children with Anne, who died in 2009.

But Maureen stayed in Troon and ran her own hairdessers in the town.

She divorced Dugald after 27 years - and no children - and was resigned to life on her own until she received the fateful Facebook message.

She said: 'I couldn’t believe it when I saw I had a request that said ‘Hugh Forsythe wants to be your friend.’

'I just threw it down and went through the kitchen thinking ‘it can’t be’.

'I sent him a message back saying, ‘Are you the Hugh Forsythe who had a brother in Barassie and went with a girl from Barassie?’

'He sent a message back saying ‘Yes Maureen, it’s me.’

'I never thought in my wildest dreams we’d meet up again, but Facebook brought us together.'

Now the happy couple are both living in Troon, after marrying just before Christmas at Ayr Registry Office, and bringing up Hugh’s 11-year-old grandson Dylan together.

Maureen said: 'I was on my own for so long and now I have Hugh and Dylan and we babysit Hugh’s son’s seven-month-old baby. So I’m nursing the baby I never thought I’d have.'

By Nadia Gilani

Source: dailymail.co.uk