Ex-miner’s Stateside journey for love

Sitting under a cloudless sky just 50 miles from the Mexican border, with a T-bone steak charring on the grill, it’s all a far cry from his former home in Maltby.

Some 5,000 miles in distance, to be precise.

And as he and his American wife Jeanette sip water drawn from their own well, Rob reflects on the fact he owes it all to a single tweet.

The one time Maltby pit faceworker’s life changed forever when he was scrolling through social media one day.

He was smitten by the humour and warmth of a social media poster with whom he had never previously interacted — but who was later to become his bride and the key to a new life across the Atlantic.

Rob, who turned 60 on January 2, revealed his “one in a million” story to Chase from his home in Deming in the Upper Chihuahuan Desert.

His first wife had died and Rob had left Maltby colliery, where he worked from 1979 to 1993, and taken a new job as a roadsweeper.

In 2011, he was checking for Twitter updates when he came across a contribution from Jeanette, a retired US Navy veteran, now aged 55.

Rob can’t remember what the text referred to exactly but recalls it made him laugh, so he started following her online.

Thus began a year-long dialogue, which progressed from public Twitter posts to more private messages via WhatsApp.

“I suppose it’s harder for women contacting or meeting a dude from somewhere they don’t know — after all, he could be a nutter, it’s more of a gamble for them,” said Rob.

“I’d never been on a dating app or anything, and Jeanette was the first American I’d talked to.

“Yet we’d chat about anything, into the early hours of the morning, it could be about the weather or where she was living in Minneapolis, at that time.

“I had three grown-up sons. Jeanette was divorced so we were both on our own.

“Her daughter was the youngest of all the kids so after she’d come over here for a holiday, I said I’d fly over to her.

“We just fell in love — it was like we were meant to be.

“I didn’t think I’d ever get married again, but we just hit it off straight away.”

Rob, a former pupil at Lilly Hall Junior and Infants, where his mum had been a dinnerlady, and Maltby Comprehensive, says there is still sometimes a surreal feel to his romance in the Wild West.

“I still can’t believe it, really,” he said.

“We will have been married ten years in July. We get on with each other so well and like the same stuff.

“It’s like winning the lottery — millions of people are out there online and in the real world and it must be a million-to-one chance of meeting the love of your life on Twitter.

“It is the best thing ever in my life.

“I still can’t believe that I have got her — it feels unreal to me.

“Jeanette keeps saying we should be in a movie — there should be a film crew here like Ozzy Osbourne had!”

Rob, who has a total of 13 grandchildren and one great-grandchild, added: “I don’t know anybody else who has done what we did, although a mate of mine has married a Brazilian, I think!

“Somebody was complaining the other day online that they had not got anyone in their lives at 50 years old.

“Well, the love of my life arrived when I was around 50 so it’s not too late. My advice is don’t give up!”

Rob has fond memories of growing up in Maltby, but admits he doesn’t miss much about the Rotherham suburb.

He’d made close friends when he worked in the pit’s blacksmith’s shop and underground.

After taking redundancy, he was a forklift truck driver at a timber yard in Dinnington.

“I miss my mates from the Manor Hotel, but most of them are dead now,” he said.

“My life is a lot better out here.

“I am retired, I have two acres of land which was incredibly cheap, I have a few guns and do a lot of target firing and working on the garden.”

While the desert heat and dust storms provide weather you can’t compare to South Yorkshire, Rob says he is used to heat, adding: “Down the pit, we worked just in our shorts. It was so hot we’d have to tip sweat out of our boots and wring our socks out.”

Other comparisons are limited — Deming is where Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was filmed and Creed II: Rocky Balboa and Donnie Creed was also partially set there.

Much of the population is Spanish speaking, and many struggle with his accent.

“I’ve been asked if I am Australian, or from Egypt?” said Rob.

“One woman wanted to record me and use my accent as her ringtone!”

Rob peers across the desert, considers his life’s ups and downs, and concludes: “My grandad and my dad worked at Maltby pit and I had good times there.

“I only left the pit because there were rumours that an American guy was going to purchase it and a union official recommended we took redundancy.

“But coming here to New Mexico, and living with Jeanette, is the best thing I ever did.”