Not the Citizen - just ask wife-to-be Janet Bamber who gets hitched later this year.

Just months after Janet left her number on the Citizen's lonely hearts voicemail, she was preparing to tie the knot with love-struck Blackburn man John Walsh.

And as the happy couple make final preparations for their September wedding, they say they will be forever grateful to the Citizen for playing Cupid.

Their romantic story marks a turning point for Janet, 29, a Preston mother who has fought a 15-year battle with her health since she was badly injured in a road accident as a teenager.

When she was 14 years old, she was struck by a car on her first day at a new school, William Temple in Preston, after moving from Blackburn.

She lived with her family in Lovett Road, until she married at 20, had a son, William, now nine, and moved to Milner Street.

Divorced and alone, she answered an advertisement in the Preston Citizen's Two's Company section, looking for someone to share her life.

The ad had been placed by 34-year-old John, who had spent years caring for his elderly father at his home in Blackburn, until his death just two weeks ago at the age of 91.

And, now that he has found a soulmate in Janet, John is so determined not to lose her he has brought the wedding forward twice!

He said: "I did not think something like this could happen to me. We got engaged after a week and I did not want to wait any longer to get married.

"The wedding was booked for March next year, but we brought it forward twice!"

The happy couple put their compatibility down to their shared tastes in everything from music and films, to TV and leisure.

Janet has already moved out of her Milner Street home to be with him and, on September 26, the couple will marry at St Jude's Church in Preston, just a few yards from where Janet lived when she made her first call to John.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.