Valentine's Day may be a distant memory now but the story of besotted husband PAUL VIOLET'S frantic dash to save a precious memento of the early days of his courtship with now-wife Clare means that love is still very much in the air. LOTTIE WELCH reports.

ROSES are red and violets are blue....so the rhyme goes. And Paul Violet was left feeling more than blue until he rushed into action to save a tree carving of romantic significance.

Paul, 54, of Bridport, was devastated when he heard that tree surgeons were due to chop down a nearby beech tree onto which he carved a heart containing the initials of he and his date Clare - now his wife.

He had to rush to beg tree surgeons to save the piece of tree bark from the chipper.

Town council cemetery supervisor Paul had carved the couple's initials into a heart onto the tree using a pocket knife when they were dating back in January 1986.

In a race against time to save the memento, Paul jumped into his car, pulled up to the tree, wound down his window and shouted at tree surgeons: "Don't go breaking my heart!"

Over time the tree had become special to the couple, with them paying it frequent visits and telling their daughter Rebecca - now 24 - of its significance.

But recently when Paul read in the Bridport News that the now diseased beech tree at Hardy Road, Coneygar Lane, Bridport, was facing the axe, he suspected it was ‘their tree’ - confirmed when he went to look at the beech and saw the felling order attached.

Within a few hours of getting on phone to the council to discover when the tree would be felled, Paul received three phone calls from friends, informing him that tree surgeons had started work.

Frantic negotiations enabled the team to save a section of the tree with Paul’s heart carving and Paul arrived just in time to see it being cut out.

The tree bark is currently drying out and will soon be placed in a frame and given pride of place in the couple's home.

Paul said: “It is really nice that, through fate I suppose, this all happened and we ended up with it.

“Eventually the bark will come away from the wood and I would like to pin it and frame it.

“Who would have thought that 32 years ago when I carved it, we would be here? I remember very clearly carving it - it was a snowy day and we had been going out for two and a half months.

“When I was there collecting the wood, even the guys there were asking what happened to the girl and if we got married and I told them we had just celebrated 30 years of marriage.

“When you think about it, it is quite moving that the tree has stayed there all these years.”

Steve Maros, Dorset County Council's arboricultural manager, said he is proud his team was able to make Paul and Clare happy.

He said: "It is good to know that romance is still alive. The Dorset County Council tree team, whilst felling a dangerous old tree, were touched by the story of the carved heart on the tree trunk and offered to cut out the carved piece so that the person who originally carved it for his then girlfriend, now wife, could take it home as a happy reminder of all the great times they have spent together.

"It was a genuine and random act of kindness, which is a great example of how trees and the community are always interlinked.

"I was very proud of my team for being so thoughtful and making a couple very happy."

Last September Paul and Clare, 56, celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary with a surprise trip for Clare on the Belmond Pullman and the Orient Express to Paris. Paul surprised Clare, a cleaner for Bridport Town Council, with news of the holiday by presenting her with a model of the Eiffel Tower and a picture of the Orient Express to unwrap.

Coincidentally, another present at their celebration was a framed photograph of Paul’s carving on the beech tree, which by then had been carved 32 years ago.

For years the carving remained as the couple's early days in love, with Paul and Clare occasionally walking past and noting that the heart was still there.

Close friends and family would often refer to the beech tree as ‘Paul and Clare’s Tree’, or as Paul and Clare often remarked, ‘our tree’.

Paul said he doesn't really think of himself as a romantic, more as a 'spur of the moment guy'. He said he and Clare spent a quiet Valentine's Day on Thursday, but he made sure he presented his wife with flowers.

"I've had a few friends taking the mickey out of me about this," he said.

"There seems to have been a lot of interest since this all came out! I'd really like to thank the council's tree team who have been so good to us.

"I think it's all quite nice for Clare, we've both managed to go on together for years since I carved our initials into the tree. I think that in this day and age you have to work at a relationship and we're still together and we love each other a lot."

But Paul just hoping he doesn't find himself with another tree emergency.

He said: "I also carved out initials onto a tree in Drimpton - I'm just hoping that one stays so I don't have to do the same thing again!"