Chris, 71, and Joke, 73, met at a party in New Zealand in the 1970s. Married with five children, they have seen each other through cancer and have moved to the other side of the world and back

As a student in the early 1970s, Chris was enjoying life at Auckland University. “I was studying history and classics, and dating a girl called Plonie,” he says. Their romance fizzled, but they decided to stay friends. “We didn’t see each other that often, but she started going out with one of my best friends, Brian, so we were still in touch.”

In 1976, Brian married Plonie, and they had a housewarming party to celebrate moving in together. By then, Chris was a postgraduate student, studying for a master’s in Roman and Greek history. At the party he spotted Joke, Plonie’s older sister. Although he had seen her before, they had never properly spoken.