BRITISH Telecom played cupid for a couple back in June 1987, by presenting them with the phone box where they did most of their wartime courting.

They arranged for the old kiosk to be moved from its long time home at Dawlish Warren to the garden of the couple’s home.

For two years in the darkest days of the war the couple used the box to chat to each other.

When they wrote asking for a photograph of the box before it was replaced by a the new type, BT went one better and gave them the old one.

It was taken by road to the couple’s home in Bognor Regis, and craned into their back garden as a permanent reminder of the early days of their romance.

It was love at first sight for soldier Bill Kingston when he spotted pretty 17 year-old Grace walking at the Warren in June 1941

Stationed at Teignmouth with the BUFFS – the Royal East Kents – he was on a landing exercise at the Warren when he first first caught a glimpse of her.

They started going out with each other, but a few weeks later Bill was posted elsewhere.

Grace worked at Exeter making barrage balloons, and to keep in touch Bill would telephone the Warren box just after the train taking her home to Cofton arrived.

For two years they chatted regularly on the phone, until they were married in 1943 at Cofton church.

‘I spent hours standing in that box and the operators came to know us so well that in the end they were almost joining in the conversation.

‘They were so friendly and if the train had been delayed they would put the call on hold for Bill until I got there,’ said Grace.

‘I am really grateful to that old box because it kept us close during the war. Really it was the only way of communicating because there were few private phones in those days, and letters took so long to arrive.’

Not long after they were married, Bill was shipped to Italy to fight in the Anzio campaign.

He was badly injured and taken prisoner, spending nine months in a POW camp.

His injuries were so bad that when he was freed he weighed only five stone, and doctors gave little hope for his survival. But he defied them all.

The couple were spending a two-week holiday in Dawlish and were presented with the box at a special ceremony.

Grace added: ‘It is a lovely gesture by British Telecom and it will be put to good use in the garden – as a mini greenhouse.’