The couple have supported each other through grief, including the deaths of their parents. In 1994, they moved to Kuala Lumpur for two years, then Folkestone, England, before settling in Wisconsin in 1999.

“It was completely different to Yorkshire and I was terribly homesick at first,” says Jane. Their daughter was born in 1986, and the couple moved to Texas for John’s work the same year. “It was a very different culture but I quite enjoyed it,” she says. The couple married in January 1985, and Jane travelled to Saudi Arabia for the first time that summer. “We toured various parts of England and Scotland together whenever I wasn’t working.” At the end of their month together he proposed, and returned to the UK in September so they could plan the wedding. “We fell in love in that month,” she says. Rather than returning to the US when he next had leave, in the spring of 1984, John went to stay with Robert’s mother in England so that he could spend time with Jane. “We had so much in common, despite being from different parts of the world,” says Jane. After spending the day exploring the city together, they both knew there was something special between them. I don’t know how I got the day off,” says Jane.

“I was working in BHS and it was the busiest time of the year. Knowing a letter would never reach Jane in time, he asked Robert to phone her and ask her to meet him at King’s Cross station.

Penpals tell me why live