Still holding hands

The couple celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary are not the only ones to have met as pen pals (Mail).

My future husband was in hong kong doing national Service and i was a dressmaker when a mutual friend suggested we become pen pals.

We competed in writing long letters, which he won with a 32-pager. We arranged to meet when he came home and after three years we got married. My aunt made my gown and i made the bridesmaids’ dresses.

We honeymooned in Jersey and the tourist board gave us a china plaque in the shape of the island. years later, it was broken, but after an appeal one was found in the tourist board’s archives and they presented us with it. We still hold hands — mind you, that’s to hold each other up!

VAL CRANE, Sawbridgeworth, Herts. in 1963, i was one of thousands of women who responded to an advert in a London evening paper asking for pen pals for servicemen in Aden.

My pen pal came home to england in June 1965 and we married that october. We were told it wouldn’t last, but we have three children and four lovely grandchildren, and still walk hand in hand.

CHRISTINE LEGGE, Winslow, Bucks.