by JANE FRYER

Last updated at 11:56 06 March 2007

A miserable March afternoon and Brighton beach is deserted — except for one small, greying man who has just emptied dozens of bottles out of a rucksack and is limbering up on the wet shingle to chuck them, one by one, into the sea.

'I usually throw them from the end of the pier, where it's quieter. But it's fine here,' he trills. 'So long as the tide's right. Here, have a go. Which do you fancy?' He brandishes a smeary selection of Jacob's Creek, Banrock Station Shiraz and Tesco's Finest Cabernet Sauvignon.

'Most people opt for the classic green corked wine bottle. The half bottles of vodka and gin float the best, but magnums are my favourite to throw.' Er, OK. If you say so.

While he may sound ripe for an ASBO and a stint in a young offenders' institution, Stuart Conway is no teenage vandal.

Instead, he is a 45-year-old retired data administrator, father-of-two and self-confessed romantic. He runs a website offering to take people's innermost secrets, hopes, dreams and, all too often, despair, pop them in an empty bottle and hurl them into the English Channel.

Since setting up the site ten years ago, he has personally 'delivered' more than 6,000 messages, and all out of the goodness of his heart — because the service is free.

He has even thoughtfully made his programme available for others to copy — helping to create nearly 30 other 'message in a bottle' services all around the world, from Australia to the Americas, which have despatched another 8,000 messages into the briny.

'I like to think of myself as a sort of postman for emotions,' he shouts into the wind. 'The messages are like spells or wishes and some are darker than others.

I remember one that contained a message from someone with every sort of woe — health, money, relationship, you name it — sank straight to the bottom — that's never happened before.

Another particularly dark one smashed as it hit the water. It gave me a terrible shock.' Sadly, however, the sea is not an efficient mail service. To date, Stuart knows of just 20 of his messages having been found — on sandy beaches in northern Brittany, the Netherlands and Germany. But he is unconcerned.

'The cathartic bit for the sender is writing the message and e-mailing it in to me. The bottles don't need to be found.' In Stuart's 'centre of communications' — a fabulously untidy upstairs room in the house in Hove he shares with his girlfriend Vivienne, 43, their two young children and hundreds of empty bottles — messages flood his inbox and pour off the printer.

They are a startling mix.

Some contain helpful suggestions for whoever eventually finds the bottle: 'Whoever you are, be careful who you love, because they won't always be there for you.' Others seek advice, such as the teenage girl who likes her boyfriend very much but likes sleeping with his best friend even more.

Most, though, just have a good, old moan.

'I never figured life would work out like this. I tended your ferret.

I walked your bulldog. I loved you,' writes a lady from Coventry.

'Why didn't we go to Mexico? Why didn't we get married? Why did you change your mind? Why did you stop loving me?' And while the whole set-up might sound Robinson, there's to it than lobbing bottles into 'It's actually says Stuart. must be right turn, so the nicely spread into each other.

'Then you wind.' Stuart's wind-pink ribbon twirly washing garden.

'Then I check forecast on no good if change, as back in Brighton.' Stuart could of not taking messages are Times New printer rather that they aren't condensation.

Back on the beach I learn there's more to throwing a bottle than meets the eye.

It's cold and suede designed for and shingle, cold and gritty, for the evaporating Meanwhile, is having a nightmare.

First, he smashes cuts himself. catches him soaks him up the tide is all to up sticks end of the pier, of slimy bottles Rioja, but bottles — you It sounds hard work for he claims it's a service.

'I started the dotcom about money-grabbing. not be bothered any money.' The 6,000-plus messages communications compulsive

might sound a touch Heath Robinson, there's rather more to it than lobbing a load of wine bottles into the sea.

'It's actually quite technical,' says Stuart. 'First, the tide must be right — ideally on the turn, so the bottles will be nicely spread out and not jangle into each other.

'Then you need a brisk offshore wind.' Stuart's wind-gauge is a dirty pink ribbon that hangs from the twirly washing line in his garden.

'Then I check the four-day forecast on the internet — it's no good if the wind's due to change, as they'll all end up back in Brighton.' Stuart could never be accused of not taking it seriously. The messages are printed in posh Times New Roman — by laser printer rather than ink-jet, so that they aren't smudged by the condensation.

Back on the beach, I learn there's more to throwing a bottle than meets the eye.

It's cold and wet, my highheeled suede boots are not designed for braving salt water and shingle, the bottles are icy cold and gritty, and my enthusiasm for the messages inside is evaporating fast.

Meanwhile, poor kind Stuart is having a nightmare.

First, he smashes a bottle and cuts himself. Then, the surf catches him unawares and soaks him up to the knees. Then the tide is all wrong, so we have to up sticks and head for the end of the pier, carrying armfuls of slimy bottles — not just Rioja, but gin, beer, water bottles — you name it.

It sounds like an awful lot of hard work for scant reward. But he claims it's all about providing a service.

'I started around the time of the dotcom boom when everything about the internet was so money-grabbing. So it was good not be bothered about making any money.' The 6,000-plus carefully logged messages in his centre of communications make for compulsive reading. Some are

jolly poems. Some are angry rants. More than a third of the messages concern unrequited love — all from women and most of them pining after an exboyfriend.

But most upsetting are those contemplating suicide: 'I'm alone in the world and full of sadness. I'm single, there's no one who loves me. I can't go on.' Stuart, however, is sanguine.

'I never interfere and I never contact them. After all, I promise confidentiality.' So does he send off the suicide notes? 'Absolutely. I provide a service.

They're just as entitled to benefit from it as anyone. It's a bit like being a priest hearing confession. You get a glimpse into other people's lives — what makes them tick.' OF COURSE, with our new-found obsession for protecting the environment, it was only a matter of time before Stuart's special service hit the headlines.

Earlier this week, Brighton and Hove Council expressed concern about his bottles being washed up and polluting the environment.

Stuart, however, has no truck with their concerns.

'My bottles are providing a useful service — they communicate.

They might never be found, but they're still carrying a message — so in my book, they're not pollution.' It's certainly an alternative view and one that I contemplate as we stand shivering in the rain at the end of the pier, ready to make a 'delivery' of messages into the sea.

Will it be 'unrequited love' in a Jacob's Creek bottle, 'woe is me' in a Banrock Station Shiraz or a nice jolly life-affirming message in a very posh Duchy Originals Organic Lemon Refresher container? I grab the Jacob's Creek and hurl it long and high into the murky water, where it lands with a satisfying splash. I am assured by Stuart it will be ten miles away by this time tomorrow.

Beside me, he throws in the Tesco's Finest bottle. And I can barely believe it, because after more than 6,000 such 'deliveries', he still has one of the girliest throws I've ever seen.