Who said romance is dead? It certainly is alive in the English town of Ashford, Middlesex, where Ken Morgan came up with the perfect gift for his wife Shirley – a double-decker bus of the same model as the one on which they met in 1956.
When their anniversary came around, former airman Ken went the extra mile. He sought out a collector who had found in a scrapyard a 1947 Guy Arab bus identical to the one on which Shirley worked as a conductor. When the couple are not using the restored bus on nostalgic trips – both in period uniform and Shirley wearing her original badge – it is garaged at a heritage museum in South Wales.
While a £12,000 (Dh57,500) bus may not be everybody’s idea of the perfect present, it certainly raises the bar for other men for whom chocolates, flowers and jewellery are the standard anniversary fare. Only one mystery remains in this romantic tale: where on Earth did Ken get enough paper and ribbon to wrap it?