Cork writer Peter Gowen on meeting his wife on the phone: 'It was obvious it was written in the stars'

When Youghal-born writer and actor Peter Gowen picked up the phone one night in London, he could not have known he was about to hear his future wife’s voice. He tells Helen O’Callaghan about how love blossomed in three weeks of nightly phone calls

Peter Gowen: "The phone rang one night, I was alone in the house, and I answered it. It was a friend of Mark’s wife — Anna." Picture: Gareth Chaney.

I met my wife in October 1993. I met her on the phone.

I’d split up from a long-term relationship the previous January. I’d had to move out of the flat we shared so I didn’t have a base in London. I was touring England then and working in the East End. So I was staying with a great friend, Mark Lambert, in Kensal Rise.