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It’s a love story that might have lain forgotten.

When retired NHS nutritionist Anne Evans opened a box her mother had stored, she discovered it was full of letters her great grandfather wrote to her great grandmother while they were courting in the 1880s.

Anne, from Penarth, came across the beautifully handwritten Victorian letters, complete with one penny stamped and dated envelopes, when her mother gave her a box she had been storing from her father’s family.

Anne has contacted Royal Mail which is asking people to search for letters relating to key moments in their family history, as part of its 500th anniversary.

“My parents found the letters when they were sorting out my paternal grandmother’s house in Surrey after she died, but never read them,” said Anne.

She believes her great grandfather, John Dunbar Drury, and her future great grandmother, Louisa Hall, met through a local Baptist church in London. John was 26 and Louisa 22 when they started writing to each other. They married in July 1888 and had one surviving daughter, Anne’s grandmother.

“I don’t know how long they were writing to each other but the letters I have sorted through cover a three year period.

'Delight'

“Surprisingly, none were recovered from Louisa to John, but I know she must have written many times too, because he speaks fondly in his replies at his delight in receiving her letters to him.”

The letters cover a wide variety of subjects, from going to concerts and attending interesting lectures in town halls, the perpetual discussion about the weather and looking for places to rent. One letter, written on June 4, 1887, refers to the national petition to abolish the Sunday post to preserve the Sabbath.

“I hope you will not think I am acting in opposition at the movement to abolish Sunday post, which I think you signed a petition for, by writing today (sic Sunday )” Anne’s great grandfather wrote, “but I could not wait until next week to send you, once more, my fondest love……Yours lovingly John.”

Anne also has dozens of family letters written during the two world wars. She has letters from 1914-1918 between her grandparents, Herbert George Kibble to his wife Hilda Drury and World War Two letters from her father to his parents when he was working in Cambridge.

'Fascinating reading'

“They make fascinating and enlightening reading but it also feels a little intrusive, reading them, because they were my relatives’ letters, written filled with love and concern for each other,” said Anne, who is studying genealogy and has traced her ancestors as far back as the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

Val Bodden from Royal Mail said: “The letters that Anne has discovered from her ancestors perfectly capture the essence of our Letters of Our Lives campaign. It has been amazing to see the support that the campaign has received from the public already.

“We have been sent letters from all corners of the country, covering everything from fighting in the First and Second World Wars, to love letters like Anne’s great grandparents to each other in Victorian England.”

TV historian and Chief Curator Historic Royal Palaces Lucy Worsley is curating the submissions.

She is keen to receive any letters or postcards, but is particularly on the lookout for those which document family life, travel and the role of women.

A panel of judges will select a cross-section of letters that showcase UK life through the years which will be shared online. Any type of letter or postcard can be submitted to the project either through www.royalmailgroup.com/lettersofourlives or by sending a photocopy to Freepost RTSA-BEGA-AAZB, Letters of our lives, Riverside House - Riverside Estate, Sir Thomas Longley Road, Medway City Estate, Rochester, ME2 4FN.

All the letters submitted to the campaign are being showcased on a special online gallery on http://500years.royalmailgroup.com/