Heart of the Nation: Daylesford 3460

WHO knows when Cupid’s arrow will strike?

140712 TWAM NO REUSE FEE APPLIES EMBARGO TILL 12 JULY 2014 ISSUE Lovebirds in Daylesford pic : Andrew Peacock Picture: Capti...

WHO knows when Cupid’s arrow will strike?

For Anne Nicole Power and Guy Lumsden, it was on the 109 tram to Port Melbourne one Friday evening 10 years ago. As Guy alighted, he dropped his newspaper and Anne Nicole bent down to pick it up for him; he was so tongue-tied by this “drop-dead gorgeous” woman, he says, that he could only mumble thanks. But there was a frisson between them. And over the next few weeks he tried to find her again — dawdling at the tram stop, catching a slightly later tram each day — until finally his persistence paid off. Their first conversation was overheard by the whole carriage, and after Guy got off, an elderly gentleman sitting nearby turned to Anne Nicole, patted her knee and said, “You should definitely go out with him. You’d make a lovely couple.”

Well, they did start going out, and after six months they moved in and made a life together. Anne Nicole, 40, is a PA, and Guy, 45, is a fraud investigator for an insurance company, with a sideline acting in TV ads (he recently played a car dealer in a Holden ad, and a tradie in a VB commercial).

Last year Guy proposed on the same 109 tram. He and a group of friends and family assembled in the back carriage at the terminus (he knew she’d board at the back — she always does) and surprised her when she got on down the track. “It’s been the most beautiful nine years of my life,” he told her before getting down on one knee.

It hasn’t been without its bumps, of course. The first was during that original conversation all those years ago. Guy kept calling her Anne-Marie. She found a way to nip that in the bud. “I gave him my business card,” she says.

For a 50th birthday celebration of the best of Heart of the Nation, plus lots of other multimedia features, from Tuesday, July 15 go to theaustralian.com.au/50