A couple celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary have shared the romantic story how they fell in love in the aftermath of World War II - by writing 600 love notes to each other.
Geoff and Pat Bunyan, now 83 and 82, met as teenagers in 1945 and became friends but he was posted abroad before love could blossom.
The couple wrote to each other nearly every day and their friendship gradually turned to romance as their letters became ever-more amourous.
When Geoff was finally demobilised in 1948 they married and bought a house - which they still live in today.
The couple have kept all 600 letters, which they shared with family and friends as they toasted 60 years of married life.
Mr Bunyan believes the letters are the secret to their long and happy marriage.
'We became friends before we became lovers and those letters helped us get to know each other properly,' he said. 'I think that's why we're still together today.
'I guess you could say we're the last of the ultra-romantics. Those letters were my lifeline while I was miles from home.
'They were up in the loft for a long time but in the past ten years or so years I've been reading through them again.'
The couple met on the Clifton Down fields in Bristol when Pat was 18 and Geoff, then a 19-year-old Londoner, was doing his medical training at Bristol's Southmead hospital.
Wiping away a happy tear, Mrs Bunyan said: 'I was just 18 when I met him on the Bristol Downs, but I was a very innocent 18-year-old.
'We got on straight away and became best friends, spending every day together but before anything could happen he was whisked away to war.'
The war in Europe had ended but Geoff, then Private Bunyan, was drafted to India and then on to Japan for two years in the aftermath of Hiroshima.
Their letters progressed from casual chats to declarations of love sent across 6,000 miles. They numbered each one to make sure none went missing in the post.
Just after Geoff had arrived in India, he wrote to Pat on 19 October 1945 and said: 'My dear Pat. Today I had one of the greatest moments of my life.
'We arrived in smelly Bombay early this morning and after dinner, to everybody's surprise, a couple of dozen mail bags came on board. Mail! What a glorious word that is.
'And how lovely to have six letters of yours waiting for me! How excited I was! I ripped open the envelopes and read them through quickly. Tonight I feasted on them again.'
Two years later their love had developed and the tone of their letters became more romantic.
On 19 January, 1947, Mrs Bunyan wrote a letter to Geoff which read: 'I'm glad you think yourself lucky but I can't think why.
'I'm quite ordinary really darling and it's only because you love me that you think I'm wonderful. It's wonderful loving someone like you. I'm so glad I fell in love with you first.'
Mr Bunyan wrote back on February 10, 1947 by saying: 'You have the nerve to say you're quite ordinary and point out that it's only because I love you that I think you're wonderful.
'Maybe so, but have you thought that perhaps I'm in love with you because you are wonderful... I am lucky to have such a girl as you in love with me.'
The couple kept up their letter writing until Mr Bunyan was demobilised in January 1948. He moved straight to Bristol and they got married on August 13, 1949.
Later that year they bought a house in Horfield, Bristol, for £450 where they still live now - after 60 years, three children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Mrs Bunyan, who worked as a school secretary for 28 years, said: 'Our secret is that we both have a love of laughs. And we still talk a lot and are the best of friends.
'I had a terrible fall and broke my pelvis a few years ago and he has looked after me so well.'
Mr Bunyan, a retired sales manager for an engineering company, said: 'We have both worked hard, and believe in the division of labour, but we have always shown integrity and respect.
'We have never gone to sleep on a quarrel, and when we were young we had a great sex life, and have been very lucky with children.
'Meeting her is still the best thing that ever happened to me and we are still going strong. She is my rock.'
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