Letters to and from Korea in the 1950s were part of the courtship of Jack and Gena McNicoll, who are celebrating 65 years of marriage.
Thrice weekly the young couple would write to each other while Jack did his National Service, first in Germany then Korea.
And, stored in a shoebox, they still have some of those early messages which kept their romance going and gave Jack a connection with the home he missed.
Jack, 87, and Gena, 85, from St Cyrus, celebrated their blue sapphire wedding with family 65 years after tying the knot in Laurencekirk Church on December 14, 1957.
They had met at the Saturday night dances in Laurencekirk only months before Jack was called up for his service in 1954.
But Jack said: “We kept in touch all the time.
“We would write letters two or three times a week.
“They would sometimes arrive two or three at a time, and they didn’t come in sequence.
“Hearing about home was good.”
Just months after Jack’s return in 1956 they got engaged, and married the following year.
Jack, born in Kettins, Perthshire, worked on a farm, and Gena, from Fyvie, in Aberdeenshire, worked in the office of a building contractor.
Working on farms all his life, Jack had a talent for ploughing and twice represented Scotland in competitions. He and Gena travelled far and near attending ploughing events.
Gena said: “We’ve had a happy time. When he was ploughing we would be away every weekend to a ploughing match. We made a lot of friends doing that.”
The couple have two sons, John and Andrew, four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
A card from the King and Queen Consort arrived in time for their anniversary, adding to that sent by the Queen five years earlier on their diamond wedding.
