Love letter jigsaw takes 15 years

A man spent 15 years piecing together 2,000 fragments of love letters to his late wife which she tore up when she caught someone reading them.

Ted Howard, 82, wrote 98 letters to Molly during the seven years he spent travelling Europe as a farm worker.

When she found someone reading them in 1953 she tore them up.



Mr Howard, of Ramsey in Cambridgeshire, began putting the pieces back together in 1993 and has just completed the notes, three years after his wife died.

He wrote the love letters on hotel writing paper as he travelled the UK, Ireland, France and Holland in the late 1940s and early 1950s. But his wife tore each one into more than 20 pieces creating more than 2,000 fragments, some smaller than a thumbnail.

He started by separating corner and centre pieces and progressed, putting them together spending about an hour every day over 15 years. Mr Howard said: "I still miss Molly terribly but having the memories helps me through."