THE FINAL chapter of a wartime romance was written this month when a Widnes widow went to Russia to visit her husband's World War love.

Gwen Wooten, 73, has just returned from a 10-day trip to St Petersburg where she and one of her husband's old comrades visited Ganna, her late husband Arthur's wartime girlfriend.

"I felt like I didn't want to go and I was hoping something would happen to put it off.

"When I think about it now, I realise I've done something wonderful."

Her husband Arthur had been captured by German troops in France in 1940 and imprisoned in East Prussia, a harsh experience he later chronicled in a book.

When Russia overran the Nazis and liberated the labour camp, Arthur and his friend Laurie were taken to Tambov Hospital.

There he met Ganna, who was employed as an English interpreter.

They fell in love and Ganna helped Arthur escape from Russia, even though officials wanted the qualified engineer to stay in the Soviet Union.

But Arthur lost all contact with Ganna. He then met and fell in love with Gwen in London and they married.

But pure chance reunited the lovers 50 years on, as Gwen explained.

"One of my nephews saw something in one of the papers about a Russian woman who had written to the British Legion trying to trace her lost love. There was a picture of the two of them."

"He rang me up and said 'that looks like Arthur'. I said not to be silly, but it was."

Arthur was initially reluctant to revisit his POW past, but Gwen was adamant, even though the news was a shock to her: "It was the first I had heard of this woman, but I told Arthur that he owed her his life and he should get in touch."

The couple travelled to London to meet Ganna and spent a week catching up on old times.

Arthur passed away, but his old cohort Lawrie had never been reunited with Ganna.

So the Royal Artillery sponsored him and Gwen to travel over, where they were met by Russian television.

They stayed with Ganna's daughter and son-in-law Emma and Sasha.

"We stayed with them for the whole ten days; it was just unbelievable."

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.