When Donovan Shears sent a text message to a random number in 1998, it changed the course of his life.

He had been given his first mobile phone for his 18th birthday and had just discovered text messaging.

He made up a random number and sent off a message saying “hello”, to which his future wife Kirsty wrote back “hi”.

They said: “That single moment led to over 20 years of love, laughter, and partnership.”

Out of several messages to unknown numbers he sent from the Coventry pub where he was working that night, Kirsty in Cleethorpes was the only one to reply.

In 2002, the couple got married in Scotland, where Kirsty is from, and now have two children, aged six and nine.

Kirsty said she replied to Donovan’s message thinking it was someone she knew, but whose number she had not saved in her phone.

Speaking to BBC CWR, they remembered how they first met at Coventry railway station and went for their first date at the Colosseum.

Donovan said: “I started sending out random text messages, showing off to my friends.

“I picked the first four digits the same as mine, then the last three digits randomly – it was probably about five or six different numbers – and then didn’t think anything of it.”

Kirsty said: “We would text through the day and then obviously it would become more and more frequent and then at one point we decided we should phone each other.

“We started speaking over the phone as well as [texting] during the day and then eventually it come up to the August Bank Holiday 1998.

“I said to my stepsister, I’ve got to go and meet this guy, and she was like ‘he could be anyone’, and I was like ‘yes, I know’ but I was 18 and didn’t really think about consequences.

“I just got on a train and came to Coventry.”

More than 20 years on from their big day, the pair will be taking part in a mass renewal of vows at Coventry Cathedral on Valentine’s Day, organised by BBC CWR.

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