A charity shopper has uncovered what she describes as "one of the greatest love stories of all time" after purchasing a series of old postcards for just 25p each. Poppy, accompanied by her friends, spotted the second-hand postcards from the late 1970s in a local charity shop and says she still hasn't "recovered" after reading them.
The Discovery
"We sat down to read them in a pub and found ourselves down a very magical rabbit hole," she revealed in a TikTok post. Poppy shared several snaps of the postcards and summarised the messages of love they contained. "A woman named Sheila was travelling Europe writing to a man called Dianu in Romania between 1977 and 1979," she explained. "The messages were full of love and longing. How had these postcards ended up in England?"
Detective Work
Poppy and her friends went into "detective mode," scouring Google for clues about the sender and recipient. To their amazement, their work paid off. "We were not prepared that we would find a photo of them," Poppy excitedly confessed. "Now we had goosebumps, but it went deeper." The group then uncovered an old interview with Dianu, written in his native Romanian. "So off we went to translate it," Poppy said. "It was all about Sheila and the love they shared. And it told the story of how they met!"
The Meeting
The translation revealed Dianu's account of working in a hotel in Romania when a group of English tourists arrived. "Knowing English well, I was the right man in the right place. In one of the rooms rented by the English tourists, the hairdryer had broken and what followed was the fact that... I met Sheila," he recalled. "Coincidence, destiny or the hand of God, is up to each person's judgement, I just know from then on my life would change for the better. She would tell me she liked me as soon as she saw me."
Dianu described what attracted him to Sheila: her "unparalleled sensitivity, her warm, honest and sincere smile, and her finesse, elegancy and modesty." He said, "I felt that from the first moment even though I was tired from a sleepless night. It wasn't a Romanian and an Englishwoman. It was just Dianu and Sheila. Together we truly represented a couple, a single thought and a single feeling."
The Happy Ending
Poppy felt "overwhelmed" by the discovery. The story had a happy ending: a framed picture of their wedding day in 1985 proved they married. "Dianu moved to Lancashire and Sheila was a principal librarian co-ordinating 17 libraries in Manchester," Poppy added after further research. "Together they founded the Văratic Spiritual Cultural Center in Romania, close to where Dianu grew up, and they lived life to the full, travelling all over the world."
Sadly, Sheila passed away in 2015. But Dianu dedicated the drawing room at the Cultural Center to her, full of books and dedications to his love. Poppy learned that Dianu also died in 2021. "We wanted to share this to make their love story go on for a little bit longer," she said. "We love your story Sheila and Dianu, and we're so glad we stumbled across it."
