MARGARET Vincent won’t forget the day she met the two men in her life – her future husband and pop star Gene Pitney.

She was in the centre of the picture of screaming girls outside the stage door of the New Theatre when singer PJ Proby gave two concerts in Oxford in 1965 (Memory Lane, October 3).

But it was a later date that will live in her memory.

Mrs Vincent (nee Giles) now lives near Christchurch, West Sussex, writes: “An old friend from schooldays sent me a copy of the picture of PJ Proby fans and I am in the centre of it.

“I had a friend called Mandy next to me in the photograph.

“She was a great fan of PJ Proby and I was (and still am) a great fan of Gene Pitney, so we came to an ‘arrangement’ that I would go to see PJ Proby with her if she came to see Gene.

“On the day of the PJ Proby show, I was ill (although you wouldn’t know it from the photograph) – with flu and my mother tried to ban me from going, but I wasn’t going to let Mandy down.

“Everyone else was screaming, but I’d lost my voice and I was feeling like death warmed up.

“Then came Gene Pitney. I remember the day so well. It was February 13, 1966.

“A friend, Doreen, asked me to a football match between two banks. I was reluctant but she persuaded me, saying my ex-boyfriend was playing.

“It was bitterly cold. There were six spectators – me, Doreen, two of Doreen’s bank colleagues and two friends of one of the colleagues.

“One of those friends turned out to be my now husband. That was the day I met him. I rushed home from the match and got ready to go with Mandy to the Gene Pitney show.

“I had front-row seats and Gene Pitney serenaded me (I like to think so, anyway).

“So that was the two men of my life in one day – my new boyfriend (whom I married four years and one day later on Valentine’s Day) and, of course, Gene Pitney.

“I met Gene several times later after I joined his fan club and had photographs taken with him – after a five-minute allotted slot of talking to him.”