WHERE would you rather be on Valentine's Day, Bury or Paris?

Quite an easy decision to make isn't it?

And 20-year-old Tina Ashburner had another easy decision to make when her fiance Barry Hilton popped the question in the French capital on Saturday.

Barry, a chemist, took advantage of a special Bury Times readers' offer to whisk Tina away on a surprise trip to the continent.

Travelling with him was a secret engagement plan which had to be worked to perfection. Paris on Valentine's Day was the right place but he still needed exactly the right moment.

And it finally arrived at 10.15pm when the couple stepped onto a bridge over the River Seine.

With the Eiffel Tower in the background representing the essence of all things romantic and Parisian, 25-year-old Barry produced an engagement ring and asked Tina for her hand in marriage.

Tina said: "Barry explained that the real reason he had asked me to come to Paris was to ask me to marry him.

"He took the ring with him on the trip. We have been together for two years and I said yes straight away."

The happy couple, who live in Bacup, returned to the reality of English life late on Sunday.

The couple both work at Bury firm Quality Management in Tile Street.

They were back at work on Monday, the idyllic Parisian skyline replaced by cranes and cars in a scrapyard near their work!

Tina is originally from Bury and the couple will marry in the town in the year 2000.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.