HOW WE MET CAROLINE AND JAMES PARTRIDGE

Caroline Partridge, 44, was born in Guernsey. After studying French at London University, she worked in publishing, and she now runs the Langford Trust, an animal welfare charity in Bristol. She has been married to James Partridge for 18 years; they have three children and live in Bristol.

James Partridge, 44, was born near Bristol. In 1970, he was severely burnt after a petrol tank exploded in a car accident; his face was reconstructed over the next four years. He went on to read PPE at Oxford; and in 1978 he took up dairy farming. In 1992, he launched the London-based charity, Changing Faces

Caroline Partridge: I'm surprised I don't remember much about the first time I met James, because you'd think it would have been a shock. I have a picture in my mind's eye of him making bread in his kitchen - and his hands, with his damaged fingers, kneading the dough. I might have been too embarrassed to look at his face very much. I'd heard about his awful accident but I thought he didn't look that bad.

He seemed more interested in my friend, who was a rather stunning girl, and the next time I saw him was at her flat in Bristol. James had taken control of her kitchen, which was the role I usually took. He was making something macrobiotic with beans and nuts. We were both staying for the weekend and the following morning we wandered into the kitchen before everyone else was up and got started on the washing-up. There was no: "What shall we talk about next?" I'm an action person, and so is James, and as we worked, we found we had a lot of interests in common, like the state of the world, bicycles and the Grateful Dead.

Life had given James a test, and he had tackled it. I thought, "Good for you, well done." He had a lot of get up and go. It was 1977, a year of strikes, and James was enthused with ideas for change. Compared to most of us, who were the yuppies of our time, he was much more thoughtful. He did have funny features, but he was very fit and healthy looking, and his mind and personality were more interesting than most. He insisted I read The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing. It's only recently that I've told him I didn't understand it.

Back in London, he phoned me at work, so I knew that he must like me. I'd already planned to have dinner with friends, so I rang to see if he could come too. I remember that I had the dilemma of whether to forewarn them about his appearance. But I felt proud to introduce him, rather than embarrassed. I'd had some fairly grim boyfriends in the past who looked attractive, but who I wasn't particularly pleased with.

I began to see it as a big relationship a month later. I needed a new bicycle and James spent all one Saturday making sure I'd found the right one. It was a real revelation that he actually cared.

Being with someone like James, nothing is ever straightforward again. I'm a very private person, but with James, people notice you. I was incredibly shocked at first at how freely people stare - especially as I was brought up never to point or stare. James shows other people how completely normal he is, but sometimes he overdoes it. This habit of showing his true self caused a bit of a problem at our engagement party when he started discussing the value of trade unions with a very conservative guest. There was high drama afterwards: I think some people might have been more comfortable if he'd stuck to being a brave chap rather than one with such strong opinions.

My aunt and uncle brought me up from the age of 11, after I lost my parents and brothers in a plane crash. I don't think that I needed the experience of bereavement to appreciate James, although it may have brought us closer together. But I don't talk about it much.

The children have always accepted the way that James looks although, like most teenagers, they find both of us pretty embarrassing at times. There were some awkward moments when they were little, like the time when a visiting child said at lunch, "I don't like your daddy's face" and burst into tears. James ate in the milking parlour for the child's sake. He could cope, but it was harder for the child's mother, because she felt so sorry.

When his work setting up the charity Changing Faces - which helps people with facial disfigurements -became recognised, it felt sensible to move. We were all sad to leave Guernsey, but James is so uniquely qualified for this pioneering role that it would be selfish to stand in the way. When you see him on TV, he's a natural. Even buying petrol is an exercise in communication: it takes James three minutes to fill up the tank and another 10 talking to everyone in the garage - just so they know that he's a real person behind the scars.

James Partridge: By the time I met Carrie, my confidence was on an upward curve. It was seven years after my accident; I'd proved to myself that I could get work and, although I hadn't had many relationships, I knew that I could attract women, despite my mask. I'd finished reading The Golden Note-book by Doris Lessing. I hadn't wanted to expose myself to the risk of getting hurt before, but the book inspired me to take the plunge. In fact, a lot of feminist writing was important in liberating me from the appearance culture.

The first time I met Carrie was brief, when she popped by my flat in Fulham with a mutual female friend. All I can remember is her parrot, which she carried around in a holding box. The second time was more significant. On the way back from camping in Pembrokeshire, I'd dropped by to see the same friend who by now had moved to Bristol, and she said, "Carrie's coming for the weekend, you know, the one with a parrot."

I was busy in the kitchen preparing dinner when Carrie jet-setted in from London. She looked extraordinarily attractive - jeans, Kickers and a denim shirt; just a hint of being alternative - and we hit it off. Early the next day, we went for a walk by Clifton Suspension Bridge. We kept finding out how much we had in common: like ecology, wholefoods, bicycling in London and French wine. I knew by the end of the weekend that here was something quite rich.

We made our separate ways back to London, and I rang her the next day. She was going to a dinner party that evening, and I joined her. We were served jugged hare, which isn't great news for a vegetarian, but as we both felt the same, it brought us closer.

It wasn't long before I was totally absorbed in Carrie and for several weeks the world became an amazing place. Carrie was more experienced with men than I was with women, and that was reassuring. She was bubbly, loved life and she also had a deep understanding of trauma. Because of the way I looked, I knew I could never have a superficial relationship and we began to develop an underlying bond, a sense of trust. To discover that I was lovable, despite looking like this, was wonderful.

I had no intention of landing myself in marriage. I thought I was nowhere near ready, because I hadn't been through 25 women to find out who was best. But this testing-out-the-market approach isn't very healthy and it seemed unlikely I'd find anyone like her.

We married in 1978, and a year later we moved to a derelict farm in Guernsey. Some of our friends thought that we were copping out for "the Good Life", but we had both grown up in the country and we wanted to challenge ourselves. Twelve years later, we had three lovely children, we were farming 100 acres of land, and we had a herd of 70 dairy cattle. Having to take life and death decisions about an animal's welfare is agonising, but going through it with Carrie was a hugely bonding experience. She's unique, an incredibly strong person with very practical ways of solving difficulties.

By the end of the Eighties, we had a great life going for us and the last thing I expected was to make another change. But after the book Changing Faces, which I published in 1990 and which Carrie helped edit, it had to be. Setting up the charity Changing Faces on the mainland meant I was often an absent father but Carrie kept everything together; she's an amazing mother.

Gradually small incidents told us that we were pushing ourselves too hard; we had to decide between life in Guernsey and the charity. Carrie had always encouraged me to persevere with Changing Faces, and has never put anything in my way, even when it meant leaving her beloved Guernsey. I'm not proud that I have required her to make this sacrifice, but I hope there are benefits too. When we met I knew we both had potential but I never understood the depth of her. !