'I met my husband 40 years ago after placing an advert in the dating section of the Express & Star and it's been so brilliant'
It was more than 40 years ago that an advert placed in the dating section of the Express & Star led to two soul mates from Walsall finding each other.
Julia Westwood, from Darlaston, said she had been persuaded by her friends to put an advert in the Express & Star back in 1985 when the paper was running a dating section and had decided it was worth trying out.
That advert led to a number of messages being sent to her from potential suitors, with William Westwood being one of them, and Ms Westwood said that she had liked the look of him and so they started messaging each other.
She said: "I didn't go out a lot at the time and I didn't drink, so a couple of my friends said I should give it a go and I thought why not, so I put out an advert in the paper, where you had to write a description of what sort of person you were, what sort of person you were looking for and send a photo in.
"They then sent letters to you at a PO Box address and you get to decide if you want to reply back and send a letter to them, as there wasn't any internet or anything like that, so you would keep sending letters to each other.
