A couple who were forced to leave their home town amid controversy over their 28 year age gap have returned for the first time for a TV show – and insist they’re stronger than ever after three years of marriage and two children.
Beth Telford was just 16 when she fell for her now husband Andy, 47, who was a friend of her mother’s, and the pair were forced to move 170 miles from Llandudno in North Wales to Lancashire after receiving abusive comments from neighbours when news of their controversial affair got out.
Beth is now estranged from her disapproving mother and the couple – who got married in November 2016, and have two sons – are desperate to return to where they came from, and visited the town for the first time since being driven out in the Channel 5 series Age Gap Love.
Stay-at-home mum Beth tells the cameras how she always wanted a family and says Andy – whose van was defaced with the word ‘paedo’ when the couple first got together – is the ‘perfect man’ and her ‘best friend’.
He says of having to leave their home town behind: ‘We have paid a high price to be in the relationship and not to be where you were brought up and where all your memories are with your family.
‘It’s very tough. It doesn’t get any easier.’
Beth and Andy don’t encounter anyone they know during their visit to Llandudno on the show, but despite their visible nerves over being back, say they hope to move back permanently one day to raise their two little boys, Timmy and Conwy.
Andy and Beth Telford, 47 and 19 respectively, are seen together on Channel 5’s Age Gap Love, which starts on Monday night. The couple, who met when Beth was just 16, have now been married for two years and have two little boys
Beth and Andy are seen on the beach in Llandudno, North Wales, on the Channel 5 show, during their first visit to their home town since being forced to leave amid controversy over their 28 year age group. Beth has been estranged from her mother since getting together with Andy, who first met the teenager when helping her mum to move house
Andy, a bus driver and removal man, was originally a friend of Beth’s mum and then became close to the children too.
‘We were all like one happy family. But needless to say I didn’t know Beth was getting these thoughts.
When she reached the age of 16, Beth, who is a stay-at-home mum, said she wanted to take the friendship to the next level: ‘The age thing doesn’t really bother me, it never has done. I don’t see him as an old man or my dad or anything like that.
‘He’s just sensitive like a big teddy bear,’ she giggles in the programme that looks at their relationship.
Andy adds: ‘I was a bit concerned [about] what people would think, 16… 44, it was a big generation gap, “what are people going to think?”
But once they had fallen in love Andy became determined to give Beth everything she ever wanted and they went on to have sons Timmy, two, and Conwy, one, with the couple marrying in November 2016.
‘I’ve always wanted to have a family, so I just thought Andy would be the perfect man to do so,’ Beth explains.
The couple share a kiss on Age Gap Love, which airs on Channel 5 on Monday, and follows the couple as they return to their home town for the first time since moving to Lancashire to escape judgement and the cruel taunts of neighbours
Beth and Andy are seen left and right on their wedding day in November 2016. They now have two little boys; Timmy and Conwy, and Beth is a stay at home mum
Their age gap relationship has drawn a lot of negative attention which has turned their lives upside down.
Andy says: ‘To say it was really dark days, I can’t stress to you enough that’s mild.’
The couple were forced to leave behind the town they considered home following the controversy surrounding their relationship and move to Lancashire.
In the programme they revisit north Wales for the first time since leaving, Andy complains: ’Forty years I’ve lived in Wales, my mum has been here, my grandma has been here and I’ve got to leave.’
The couple say they don’t want to stay away forever and plan to move back eventually, but Beth is still nervous about getting out of the car as they arrive at their old house on the show.
‘I can’t blame her it’s taken a lot to bring her down here,’ her husband says.
‘We have paid a high price to be in the relationship and not to be where you were brought up and where all your memories are with your family.
‘It’s very tough. It doesn’t get any easier.’
Beth is seen while she was pregnant in a photo with ‘best friend Andy’. The couple’s sons are now aged one and two, and they hope to move back to Llandudno eventually to raise them in their home town, they said on the show
The couple, seen playing with one of their two little boys in a scene from the Channel 5 show, were forced to move over a hundred miles away to Lancashire with their two small children but hope that they can one day move back to the place they called home in Wales
The couple say they would would love to raise their children in the area, but fear that people wouldn’t approve.
‘Yes we’re in an age-gap relationship… get over yourself, we’ve been together three years, yes we’re married, we’ve got two children,’ Andy says.
‘Unfortunately although we put a brave face on it kills me inside all the time. This is my home.’
Despite being happy, the couple have faced a lot of prejudice from family and friends about their relationship.
‘I couldn’t go out without being called something or getting dirty looks or people talking about me,’ Beth says.
‘They made me feel like I was some sort of animal because I was going out with a younger girl,’ Andy added.
‘No I am a going out with a younger girl because this girl asked me to go out with her which is a privilege to me and an honour to me to find someone that thinks that of me.’
Beth and Andy, seen in a photograph taken in the early days of their relationship, say they are desperate to be treated ‘like a normal couple’
It’s been two years since the couple moved away but being back and not encountering any problems gives them both hope, they say.
‘People don’t really say much they just stare a lot. It’s nice to be back but I always get nervous in case I bump into someone and it’s a bit awkward,’ Beth says.
‘I don’t want to be treated any differently, we are Beth and Andy, and that’s it isn’t it?’
‘Yep definitely. I do want to be treated like a normal couple but I just prefer to be left to get on with it because I do miss it. Being able to take the kids to the beach and stuff.
‘To move back here that is the end goal really,’ Andy adds.
They say they hope the longer they stay together they hope more people will accept them as a couple: ‘I think the best way to describe our marriage and our relationship, is no different from three years ago.
‘There’s no difference at all, we’re best mates. I don’t see B as my wife I see her as my best mate.
Beth agrees: ‘I see it as a normal relationship, a normal marriage, you’re my best friend.’
Age Gap Love starts Monday on Channel 5 at 9pm