An elderly couple are spending their time in isolation reading the love letters that they sent to each other almost 70 years ago.

Ken and Rosemary Mills, both 88, have been spending their days reminiscing about their early romance and reading the letters that they sent to each other between 1950 and 1952 whilst Ken was away on national service.

The Puddletown couple, originally from Reading, have been married for 67 years and are enjoying reliving their youth through their own words.

Mr Mills said: “It’s been great fun reading the letters. We each sent two or three letters a week for two years so there are an awful lot of letters to get through.

“They are all dated so we’ve put them in date order and we are following the pattern that they happened in, as if we are still doing it almost 70 years later.”

The couple met on a youth holiday from Reading to Dusseldorf shortly after the Second World War and Ken flirted with Rosemary by throwing toffee papers at her on the train from Reading to Dover.

Mr Mills said: “It was a holiday romance. We found that we had much in common. We played tennis together and went to church together and we just fell in love.”

The couple relied on letters to maintain communication whilst Ken was stationed in Taunton and Rosemary worked at Harwell Laboratory in Oxfordshire.

Mr Mills said: “In those days we didn’t have phones so we couldn’t ring each other to find out how the other was. That is why we wrote so many letters because we wanted to keep in close contact whilst we were apart.”

Bryony Johnson, Ken and Rosemary’s granddaughter, has always admired her grandparents for their happy and enduring marriage.

Ms Johnson, 30, said: “They are people that I look up to for relationship goals. When they told me they were reading their old love letters I thought it was so sweet. I can picture them sitting on their chairs and giggling over the things they said in their letters.”

While the couple are thrilled to be reading their old letters, they are both saddened that future generations will be unlikely to get to enjoy such a pastime as technology has meant that love letters have become a thing of the past.

Mr Mills said: “The sad thing is that, in years to come, people won’t be able to do what we are doing now. In 50 years time I don’t think older people will be able to reminisce like we are able to do.

“We have kept out love letters since 1950 and our next task will be to go through the photograph albums of the many, many adventure holidays that we went on over the years.

“It’s such a shame people won’t be able to do that in the future.”

Mr Mills added: “The secret of such a long and happy marriage is to be friends as well as lovers. Rosemary and I are best friends.”