Bertram Pridmore had been married for 49 years when his beloved wife died from a hospital MRSA infection following a road accident. "It left me in a bit of a state," the 78-year-old recalls three years on, sipping tea in his Norfolk village bungalow. "With my being blind, I'd lost not just my wife but also my eyes," he says, stroking his wispy white beard and pursing his lips to suppress a tear. "Not being able to get about, it was getting so lonely, especially in the evenings. Either I was going to end up a bloody loner, or I'd have to do something about it."
Pridmore was learning to use a computer specially adapted to read text aloud and magnify files for his remaining peripheral vision. Despite his initial wariness, he registered with an online dating site in March 2004. "It was the only outlet I could think of for meeting people," he recalls. "The net was an Aladdin's cave, hard work to use without my sight, but it kept me occupied."
Almost immediately, his inbox buzzed with possibilities: dinner invitations from enthusiastic Dorset widows, awkward approaches from anxious septuagenarians, time-wasting private messages from women he dismissed as "queries" and "religious freaks". He arranged a few pleasant dates, but there was never the magic that made him want to take things further.
And then he noticed the intriguing profile of Janet, a divorcée 16 years his junior, who lived just a few miles away. When he approached her through the site, Janet quickly warned him that she had been deaf since birth. Don't worry, Bertram replied, I can't see. Janet protested that she had specified a clean-shaven man, as a beard made it hard to lip-read. If we click, said Bernard, I am quite prepared to shave mine off. Plus, she added, you're far older than I wanted. Ah, he replied, but I am young at heart. They arranged to meet for tea in the Norwich Co-op and were still chatting after two hours. Four months later, in November 2004, Janet became the second Mrs Pridmore at North Walsham register office. "People said it was too quick, but I love him and it's my life, so I was going to go ahead regardless," says Janet, 62, sitting beside Bertram on the sofa. Bertram adds: "I said to Janet, she's given me my life back, didn't I, dear?" "You've given me mine too," she says, beaming back.
The digital Cupid who helped the Pridmores find love is a 39-year-old former Tamagotchi salesman based in Birmingham. Eight years ago, Darren Richards was using the internet to import microscooters, yo-yos and other Asian novelty toys, when he reflected that the web's efficiencies might also source him a girlfriend. Staggered to find no British site to take his money, he went to Dixons to buy the software FrontPage 98, put a one-page website together, and registered the domain DatingDirect.com .
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