The couple both have a broken marriage behind them

George Raby and Pauline Casson first met in the Navy in September 1970 when he was a 22-year-old sailor and she was an 18-year-old Wren.

Ms Casson accepted her boyfriend's marriage proposal, although the relationship failed when she was posted to a base more than 200 miles away.

But the couple have rekindled their romance after getting back in touch with each other through the website Friends Reunited, and are to marry later in the year.

Mr Raby, who is from Powick, Worcestershire, told BBC Midlands Today about the moment the internet brought them together again.

She came out through the door and she looked totally different to what I remembered George Raby

"I got this message saying: "Is that you Raby? My heart just went over; I thought: 'Great'.

"I replied straight away because I was actually on the net when it came through."

But once again geography was against them, as Mr Raby lived in Worcestershire and his former sweetheart in Aberdeen.

The couple did not let the distance between them deter them a second time though, and before long they arranged to meet at Birmingham Airport.

Ms Casson said: "It wasn't until the doors opened at the airport and I thought: 'What am I going to find?'

"I just looked sideways and he was there grinning, and that was it."

Mentally different

Mr Raby said he was not expecting what he found.

"She came out through the door and she looked totally different to what I remembered.

"You just have this vision that exactly the same person's going to walk through that door and it wasn't.

"It was somebody who was physically different and emotionally and mentally different - what a wonderful person."