From a Kenyan holiday fling to a lifetime of regret, one woman's story of love, loss, and reckoning.

It was the kind of story that made headlines, the sort of scandalous, dramatic love affair that had people whispering over garden fences and shaking their heads in disbelief. Cheryl Thomasgood, a 34 year old hairdresser from the Isle of Wight, abandoned her husband, her three children, and her entire life for a man she had known for only a matter of weeks. Not just any man, but a Masai warrior, Daniel Lekimencho, who stood 6 foot 2 inches tall, carried himself like a hero from a storybook, and belonged to a world so far removed from Cheryl’s that it might as well have existed in another galaxy.

At the time, the early 90s, this was the stuff of sensational daytime talk shows, the kind of story that had audiences gasping in shock, some in judgment, some in fascination. How could a woman walk away from everything for a man she barely knew? Was it lust? Was it love? Or was it something deeper, something more complicated, the kind of inner rebellion that simmers quietly in people until one day it erupts in a way no one, not even they themselves, saw coming?

Cheryl, now 65 and living quietly in a seaside town in Somerset, has finally decided to speak openly about what happened, not to justify herself, but to make peace with a past that still haunts her. The story she tells is not just one of reckless passion, but of illusion, of heartbreak, and ultimately, of the steep price paid for chasing a dream.

It all started in 1994, on a holiday in Kenya. Cheryl, married to her second husband, Mike Mason, was at the Bamburi Beach Hotel when Daniel and a group of his fellow Masai performed a traditional dance for the tourists. There was something about him that immediately captivated her. He wasn’t just striking in appearance, though that certainly played a role. He was different. He listened. He spoke of a life unburdened by materialism, a life connected to tradition, to nature, to something that felt, to Cheryl, more real than the comfortable but unremarkable existence she had known back home.

Within weeks, she was making arrangements to leave her life behind. She returned to England just long enough to tell her husband their marriage was over, and then she was gone again, trading her middle class home for a mud hut, goatskins for a bed, and a diet that included cow’s blood and cabbage. Photos from that time show Cheryl draped in traditional Masai dress, looking happier, or at least more alive, than she ever had before. It was a fairy tale, at least for a little while.

But fairy tales, as we know, rarely last. The same man who had seemed so free from the trappings of Western life quickly changed when they moved to England. The warrior who had seemed indifferent to money became obsessed with it. The man who had once made Cheryl feel truly seen began to complain constantly about their circumstances, about his own dissatisfaction. She jokes now that he became the Masai version of Victor Meldrew, the famously miserable character from the BBC sitcom One Foot in the Grave. But the truth behind the joke is far sadder.

Cheryl admits now that she was naive. She thought she was choosing a life of authenticity, but in reality, she became Daniel’s ticket out of poverty, a means to an end. They married in 1995, had a daughter named Misti, and by 1999, it was over. The details of their split remain private, but Cheryl’s tears as she speaks of it now suggest a relationship that left scars on both sides.

What stings the most, she says, is the hurt she caused her other children. The two sons from her first marriage, Steve and Tommy, and her daughter Chloe from her marriage to Mike, were left behind in the wake of her whirlwind romance. She acknowledges now that they paid the price for her choices, something that weighs heavily on her. Time has given her perspective, but it hasn’t erased the guilt.

Today, Cheryl lives quietly, her past known only to those who remember the headlines from decades ago. She has kept her story hidden from her neighbors, from the friends she’s made in the years since, afraid of judgment, perhaps, or simply wanting to leave that chapter behind. But now, at 65, she’s ready to face it. Not to defend herself, not to romanticize it, but to make sense of it, to understand how a few weeks in Kenya led to a lifetime of consequences.

Her story isn’t just about love or impulsivity. It’s about the allure of reinvention, the way people sometimes convince themselves that if they run far enough, they can outpace their own unhappiness. It’s about what happens when the dream crashes into reality, when the person who seemed like a savior turns out to be just another flawed human being. Mostly, it’s a cautionary tale about the things that get broken when we mistake infatuation for destiny, and how, sometimes, the price of chasing a fantasy isn’t just paid by us, but by the people we leave behind.

Would she do it all again? Cheryl’s answer is firm. No. Not because she doesn’t believe in love, not because she regrets her daughter Misti, but because she knows now that some choices can’t be undone. Some wounds take decades to heal. And some stories, no matter how sensational, don’t end the way we imagine they will.