How I found LOVE in a Campervan
It’s a delightfully dotty love story — the air hostess who sold up to drive around in a campervan to find Mr Right — and bagged the good life too
WE ALL have dreams of finding the love of our lives and growing old together in lavish surroundings, like a sweeping country estate right? Well for Nicci Taylor, that dream came true — in the most unusual of ways.
Until three months ago Nicci, a former air stewardess, was a confirmed townie.
She hadn’t even met James Pollard, her very dashing (and very posh) new love, although she had long dreamed of meeting him, or someone like him. Back in May, Welsh-born Nicci was a single mother, facing turning 50 with a sense of despair — but determined to have one last glorious blast at finding Mr Right.
So she announced in an online blog that she was going to sell her home, a threebed semi (‘quite ordinary, postage-stamp garden, no boathouse,’ she says), and all her possessions, buy a campervan and set off on an adventure to find love. She would tour Britain i n the camper accompanied only by her dog Milo, stopping off for dates along the way.
And she did — attracting some rather bemused publicity. As it happened, one report was read by James, a lonely divorcee living in possibly the most remote corner of Britain (and yes, on a vast country estate). He invited her to pop in for a coffee were she to be passing — which seemed unlikely, given his most northerly location.
Yet Nicci promptly pitched up in her campervan — and James proffered not just a coffee, but a glass of champagne (‘and in a crystal glass, too,’ Nicci says).
Love blossomed. Quickly. Within four days he had asked her to stay for ever, uttering the words that every singleton living in a campervan wants to hear: ‘What’s mine is yours.’
INCREDIBLY, they are even talking about marriage. ‘I was ill the other night and I asked James if he was going to carry me upstairs,’ she tells me. ‘ He said: “I’ll save that till I carry you over the threshold.” ’
It is perhaps the most preposterous love story ever, and one that is tricky to explain to strangers.
‘We were talking about it the other night, and James said that maybe it’s not that unusual, because it’s a bit like online dating. I said: “Yes, James, but even people who meet online tend not to meet for a coffee and move in on the same day.” ’
In fact, many locals don’t realise that she isn’t simply a visitor. ‘A gardener man came the other day and asked if I was on holiday. When I said I lived here he said: “Oh, that’s nice.”
‘It is a bit odd. I do worry that people will see me and think I’m staff, especially if I’m wearing my pinny. James has bought me a Mary Berry one.’
So just how did they get to this point so quickly?
After MailOnline ran a story about Nicci, she explains, hundreds of men got in touch — mostly frogs rather than princes. ‘I got men saying things like: “I’ll meet you on the A66, love. I’ll ditch the wife in a layby and we’ll have some fun.” ’
A few were ‘normal’, though. As she set off up the West Coast of Scotland, planning to do Scotland first, then work her way down through England to Cornwall, she arranged to meet three men who sounded ‘not mad’.
‘It was quite civilised. I’d park up at the man’s house and we’d go on a date. Then we’d say goodnight and I’d sleep in the campervan.’
On his driveway? ‘Yes. I decided it would be safer. Obviously Milo was with me, so I knew that if anyone tried any funny business, he would scare them off. He’s as daft as a brush, but he does have a great bark.’
Enter James, 55, who points out that he is not the sort of man who pursues campervan-driving women he sees on the internet.
The privately educated son of a lawyer, James grew up in Hertfordshire, but the family spent summers at their second home in Scotland. He moved up for good a few years ago, seeking solace. ‘Ten years ago, my mother died, then my father died
and in the middle of it my wife told me she wanted a divorce,’ he says. ‘I went through a pretty awful time. I’d never been single and then suddenly I was. I was starting to think it was just me and the dogs for ever.’
Then this vision leapt out from his computer screen.
‘I did think “cor” to start with, yes. But also, “What grit this woman has.” I didn’t think I’d have much chance, though. Where I live is pretty much the end of the line. I thought she’d be snapped up long before she got up here.’
James seems quite lovely, although as Nicci cheerily points out, ‘it is early days’, and he looks at Nicci like an adoring puppy.
He approached her via social media, offering to show her his falcons. She’d never heard that one before and after a couple of weeks of correspondence, she was leaping out of her van and throwing herself into his arms.
They had the promised coffee, then it was time for a little tour of the estate. She hopped on the back of his quad bike, pinching herself as she discovered he had his own loch and boathouse. ‘I mean, who has that?’ she says.
It was inside the house that things got a bit tricky when James said: ‘I’ll show you to your room.’
‘I was planning to sleep in the van, as usual,’ she says. ‘But he was so polite that I just followed him.’
And that’s when it seems she lost her heart. ‘There was a white wooden sleigh bed, with gorgeous white bedding, and he’d laid out white towels and a fluffy bathrobe.
‘I had my own bathroom, and a box of mint chocolates, and when I turned round he was holding a glass of champagne. I thought: “Bloody hell, I’m in a film here.” ’
And so she decided to stay the night indoors after all.
Such is her joy in the retelling that it seems churlish to point out that films which start like this can sometimes take a worrying turn.
‘Well, yes, but do you know, I felt really safe with him.
‘He was such a gentleman. He made me dinner! I do love a man who can cook.
‘We had roast chicken, and I sat in the kitchen watching him do it, thinking: “I’m in a dream, me.” We ate in the dining room. The table seated 16 but it was just us at the end. There was a chandelier overhead. For dessert it was strawberries and cream.’
The man was just as tasty, she swoons. ‘He’s very posh, clever. He knows about a lot of things and he tells great stories.’ So did sparks fly that night?
‘I mean I knew he fancied me, but he didn’t try it on at all. To be honest, I wouldn’t have turned him down if he had, but he was a perfect gent. I was a bit shocked when even before 10pm, he asked if I minded if he went to bed. I thought: “How odd.” ’
It i s . Was James practising some slow seduction technique? Hilariously, no.
‘The thing was that when she finally arri ved s he’d only gi ven me a day’s notice that she was on her way. I was keen to make a good impression, so had spent the day running about like a headless chicken, trying to get the place cleaned. By 10pm, I was knackered.’ Nicci decided to stay with James for four days before moving on — four days of having her fluffy towels renewed and sipping champagne. By the end of the fourth night they still hadn’t kissed, she says.
‘But the night before I was due to leave, I’d had a bath and I came into the drawing room and sat down beside him and he told me that he knew I had to leave, but he didn’t want me to. He said he wanted me to stay. He said: “What’s mine is yours.” I said: ‘Are you going to kiss me?” He said: “I respect you.” And I said: “Never mind that, kiss me!” ’
When I ask what — if anything — happened next, she squeals and says she can’t possibly say. She does reveal that she discovered James has an even bigger bed than the white sleigh one in her room. ‘His is superking sized.’
Still, in true Mills & Boon style, she left to continue her journey and he wept inwardly.
He promised not to pester her, ‘but I wasn’t an hour down the road in the campervan before he was texting me’, she admits. He said she shouldn’t hesitate to come back, if she wanted. So she did — for good.
Now Nicci is very obviously no longer a guest in this wonderful home, but the lady of the house. She has taken over much of the cooking. She managed to fry an egg on the Aga top the other day, something that tickles her greatly.
She’s given the place a good clean, too. ‘I mean James said he cleaned, but it was boy-cleaning, where they only dust round the picture frames. I do proper girl-cleaning.’
She is enchanting and chatty, and most definitely kooky, but her heart certainly seems to be in the right place.
HER love life, pre James, was a car crash. Her son Philip is now at university, but she was only with his father for a few years. ‘It was an awful relationship. I was too young. He was too stupid.’ Since then, there have been several serious relationships, one of three years, one of six, but they were ultimately disappointing.
‘I never lived with anyone after Philip’s dad. Not properly. I never did wife things. I never got the cottage with roses round the door and chickens outside.’
Today, there are horses outside, not chickens. ‘They aren’t ours,’ she says. ‘But James says I can get one if I want.’
She admits she’s an unreliable hostess. She can direct you to the boathouse on the edge of this jaw-dropping country estate, point out what corners best lend themselves to grouse shooting, explain where the falconry happens and she’s red hot on the indoorsy domestic details (the chandelier in the dining room is a nightmare to clean, she points out, as are the four bathrooms, and the Aga is also a challenge).
But there are some things she’s still fuzzy on. Like how big the estate actually is. ‘I’m still finding more bits to this place,’ she explains (by ‘bits’ she means woodland). ‘ The dog ran through a gate I hadn’t noticed before and I told James he’d gone on to someone else’s land and what should I do. He said, “Oh, don’t worry darling. That’s ours, too.”
That said, she loves the scale of the place. ‘It’s like a palace to me,’ she says. ‘ Beckingham Palace. I tell James we are like Posh and Becks.’ Obviously people will think she’s a gold-digger taking advantage of a lonely man, I say. She shrieks again.
‘Oh, it’s a big house, but James doesn’t have any money. Anyway, I don’t care what people think. This is our chance to have some happiness, and I am bloody well going to take it.’ James nods. He says he doesn’t know where this story will end, but ‘ it would be mad not to give it a whirl’. ‘It’s a new chapter for me,’ he says. ‘And I never thought there would be another chapter.’
It might be a saucy chapter, too. As well as a pinny, James has bought her some gardening shoes. What about other clothes, I ask, given that she arrived with just a few pairs of jeans and some jumpers? ‘ Just lingerie,’ she says. ‘Typical man.’ ÷READ