Berliner hoping to reunite with army vet after night bus encounter
'I was pretty naive to think this would work in London'
Friday, 23rd August 2024 — By Frankie Lister-Fell
Sarah Wieding drew sketch of man but said ‘I am not lovestruck’
IT’S the bus you catch after a night out in Camden Town, a kebab in one hand and a bottle of water to stave off the hangover in the other.
The N31 is not the usual setting for a sincere conversation with a stranger – but that wasn’t Sarah Wieding’s experience last week.
The solo female traveller from Berlin was waiting at a bus stop when she was approached by an army veteran with a distinct scar on his cheek, who was back in the borough visiting his family.
The pair hit it off – chatting about his time serving in Afghanistan, his 17-year-old daughter and how he was once in a coma, during the short hop from Camden Town to Swiss Cottage.
But after jumping off the bus in a hurry after nearly missing her stop, she forgot to ask for his contact details.
Since then she has gone to great lengths to be reunited with him again, including visiting pubs in Camden and sticking up posters along the bus route to Notting Hill.
Ms Wieding, an office clerk who is studying art history, told the New Journal: “He approached and asked me about the bus.
“And then we just started chatting, and it turned into a full conversation. He sat next to me and we kept talking.
“It was really, really nice. It was just a very pure and very honest and very kind conversation.”
Ms Wieding said she had few details about him except that he had “red- blonde hair, blue eyes and a prominent scar on his lower left cheek” from when he got shot in the face.
The sketch Sarah Wieding drew
She went to The Dublin Castle and Earl of Camden to see if publicans knew the mystery man, but said: “It turns out there were quite a few regulars with prominent scars on their left cheek.
“Everybody knew a person, but it was not the person. In the Dublin Castle the three female bartenders were so sweet.
“They were like, ‘Oh maybe we know this guy. He’s a regular’. Turns out it was not him, but it was also a person with a scar on his left cheek.”
Someone suggested she should put up posters along the bus route “so that’s what happened”, Ms Wielding said.
Following the N31 route from Camden Town to Notting Hill, she put up posters with details about the man and a sketch she made in case anyone recognised him, with her email address.
There have been no responses so far but a post about the search has gone viral on Reddit – for all the wrong reasons.
Ms Wieding received a slew of negative comments comparing her to “Baby Reindeer”, the female stalker in Richard Gadd’s Netflix series.
She also said she got “roasted” after posting in an army veterans’ Facebook group, receiving many “misogynistic comments”.
One person suggested that she was just after child support.
“It completely backfired,” Ms Wieding said. “I was pretty naive to think that this would work in London.
“In Germany, if you talk to someone and you fail to exchange contact details, you just put notes where the person might be or where the encounter happened.
“But now people are saying online, ‘We’re preparing for Baby Reindeer season’.
“People think I’m a creep. The guy gave me his name, he was the one talking to me.
“[The interaction] just got stuck in my mind. And I thought, ‘Well, it is my only chance to get back in touch because I’m leaving for Berlin on Sunday.’ I can fully understand if he doesn’t want to reconnect.
“The thing is, it’s not even about a romantic thing. I met one of my best friends in the same way 24 years ago.
“The newspapers made it out like I’m a lovestruck woman who met my ‘dream man’ without even talking to me first.”
