The Stroud News & Journal ran a mysterious Valentine’s Day marriage proposal on its cover on Wednesday after losing one of its front-page adverts at the last minute.
Editor Sue Smith arrived at work last Friday to find on her desk a brown envelope stuffed with £300 in cash and a message asking the paper to run an advert ‘as big as possible’on Valentine’s Day. The notice simply said: ‘Coconut, marry me, France Lynch.’ France Lynch is a small village outside Stroud, Gloucestershire.
Smith said: ‘We had intended to run it as an ad on an inside page with a nib asking for Coconut to get in touch with us.’But the sender got lucky when one of the paper’s front-page ads fell through and it will now be run on page one.
‘Normally we would not accept advertisements without an address and telephone number, but after running it past the legal department is was decided that it was inoffensive and not likely to cause harm. ‘We are all now dying to know the outcome,’Smith said.
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