THE Citizen is happy to announce that last week's Brief Encounter has a sequel.

Just hours after last week's paper hit the streets, our front page story was causing quite a commotion.

The story began when Kent newspaper man Bill Moss asked us to track down his long-lost first love Eileen Lloyd, who he had last seen in Preston.

With the Citizen hot off the press, Eileen, now happily married and working at British Aerospace in Warton, was traced.

She is now called Eileen Hastings and married to a Freckleton barber. And she was surprised that Bill had remembered their 'brief encounter.'

She said: "I saw the article and was quite surprised because I remember meeting Bill on a pilgrimage to Lourdes back in 1965 and swapping addresses after the trip ended.

"It was quite strange to think he had gone to such effort to track me down all these years on.

"And my husband is very happy to know that Bill is married!"

Bill told the Citizen he last saw Eileen on Preston Railway Station 33 years ago, and only decided to look for her when he attended a sales conference in Blackpool.

He had visited her last known address - the Watertrough Pub on Fylde Road - but no one remembered the Lloyd family. Bill said: "It is great to know she is well. Hopefully, I'll be able to write to her and find out how she is.

"I just thought it would be nice to get in contact again. I'm quite glad I went to the effort to track her down, but I can't say thank-you to the Citizen enough."

Bill added: "Hopefully my wife won't find out, though!"

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