Love Dundee

Adele and Lewis Macmillan

"My in-laws featured in the 2017 magazine about people falling in love in Dundee. My husband and I are now the third marriage in our family to come out of the University following on from his parents and his sister and her husband. My husband and I met at the University in 2014 when I was starting my mental health nursing degree and Lewis was in his final year of renewable energy. We met in a pub three days before the first semester began. He told me his very best joke and asked for my number so he could walk me to Bonar Hall to matriculate the following Monday. We enjoyed the Physics Society Ball and pub quizzes in Air Bar during our studies but the most memorable moment together at University was watching the solar eclipse next to The Union. We now have two children and still live in Dundee."

Eglė and Gerdas Žeimiai

"Gerdas and I met in first year, right outside the lecture hall where we had Psychology lectures together. During one of the very first Psychology lectures, our professor looked around and made an observation about people already forming little social groups. He then turned to us and said ‘these two are clearly getting together!’ Perhaps a week or so later, we indeed officially started dating. Now, we are soon to celebrate our nine-year anniversary of being together and two years of being married."

Richard and Shona Watson

"We met in the 'Old Dines' in our first year at Dundee in 1968. We both graduated in the summer of 1972 and got married in July of that year. This year we will be celebrating our golden wedding anniversary with our four children and nine grandchildren. We never saw that coming when we first met! That’s Dundee magic for you."

Emilia Pankiewicz and Pedro Costa Ribeiro

"I did find my love in Dundee, on Valentine’s Day 2020 during a flat party! Sometimes I think that if I did not go to that party, I probably would have never met him. We were enrolled in programmes in different Schools, he was studying International Banking and Investment Management, and I was enrolled in the LLM in International Law and Security. After our programmes ended, we spent some months apart due to the Covid pandemic as Pedro is originally from Portugal and I was living in Belgium. Pedro has now moved to Brussels, started his career and we now live together."

Misba Fathima and Rehan Zariwala

"I met Rehan at the University of Dundee on 11 September 2019 and I’m happy to say we are getting married on the 7 August 2022. We will always cherish our Dundee journey for the rest of our lives. Rehan was the first person I met when I came to Dundee. We studied in the same Biomedical Engineering class. Our friendship turned out to be love and Dundee will always have a special place in our hearts."

John and Sue Marchbank

"I first met my now wife, Sue Oselton, at the University of Dundee Christian Union in 1967 where she was treasurer. She was Junior Honours Chemistry and I was first-year Mechanical Engineering. Risking the opprobrium of a first year asking out a third year I braved all and arranged to go to the cinema. On seeing the queue I suggested driving to Edinburgh where we patronised a Wimpy bar on Prince’s Street. We were engaged in 1968, Sue graduated and we were married in Shropshire in 1970. We settled in the West Midlands where Sue was already working in the plastics industry and I had a job offer from Tube Investments. We moved onto Wiltshire and stayed for 27 years, Sue taught maths in our local senior school and I ended up working for 20 years with the MoD. After 52 years of happy marriage, we now reside in Devon, where our two married children also live, and have four amazing grandchildren."

Muriel and John Markland

"In October 1967, on my way from Lancashire to the University for the first time I met a group of second-year students at the station in Edinburgh who took me under their wing and showed me where to catch the train to Dundee. One of them was John Markland who was awarded his MA in 1970 and his PhD some years later. I was awarded my BSc in 1971 and PGCE in 1972. We married in December 1970 and celebrated our Golden Wedding Anniversary during the lockdown in December 2020."

Bernard and Sue Farrant

"In our final year, Sue and I were both on a biochemistry course and after lectures, she would suggest we go to the Chaplaincy because the egg mayonnaise rolls were to die for. I thought that she was pretty gorgeous but she was going out with a politics lecturer so I thought that I had little chance. However, I plucked up the courage to send her a Valentine’s card. I didn’t sign it and she naturally thought her boyfriend had sent it! He was not impressed. About a week later the truth was revealed, a few weeks passed and she dumped the lecturer. One day in May, we went pony trekking in Glen Clova. We came back to Abernyte where I was staying and I suggested we go for a walk. I popped the question and she didn’t hesitate in accepting my proposal. In July 1975, we married. We are absolutely devoted to each other and still live in the house we bought one week before our wedding day. One of our sons-in-law, graduated from Dundee with a first in architecture so we returned for his graduation in 2009. We stayed in West Park where Sue lived in first year."

Nadia Jeffery and Conor Owen

"Conor and I met in our first year of university, he lived on the bottom floor of West Park Flats and I lived on the top floor. I was hanging out with my friends outside when I heard ‘You guys hungry? We have Toffee Pops’ he was hanging out of his kitchen window holding a packet of biscuits. I was new to the UK, had barely been in the country for a month and I immediately thought he was a bit of a ‘weirdo’. Five years later, he’s still a weirdo, but I couldn’t be happier."

Kiyoshi Aritra Nasir Bhuiyan and Hollie Linda Ann Whitfield

"My partner graduated from Dundee in 2008 and while she was a student there, she was part of JOOT Theatre Company. Fast forward six years and in my final year, I was also part of the same theatre company. She had come back to partake in some of the theatre’s productions and while she was starring in the shows, I was lighting her as part of the backstage crew. We had known each other for a while but one night we met as part of a larger group gathering at Tonic Bar and sang ‘Uptown Funk’ together – we felt an instant connection and have been together since. In 2019 we got engaged and married the following year. Dundee will always hold a special place in both of our hearts."