Poppy and her friends weren't prepared for the details of the love story they uncovered after snapping up a series of second-hand 1970s postcards from their local charity shop09:06, 20 May 2026A charity shop customer claims to have invertedly unearthed "one of the greatest love stories of all time" after purchasing a series of old postcards. Accompanied by her friends, Poppy spent 25p each on several second-hand postcards she spotted in a local shop and says she still hasn't "recovered" after reading them.‌"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 a number snaps of the postcards - which dated back to the late 1970s - and summarised the content of the messages of love.‌‌"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?"Poppy continued, joking she and her pals subsequently went into "detective mode", scouring Google for clues as to the identities of the sender and recipient.And to their amazement, their work surprisingly 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."‌Next, the pals uncovered an old interview with Dianu - albeit in his native Romanian. "So off we went to translate it," Poppy enthused alongside a screenshot of the interview."It was all about Sheila and the love they shared," she said. "And it told the story of how they met!"Indeed, the translation was an account of Dianu's time working in a hotel in his homeland - a period in which he met Sheila. "I could say it was my greatest luck," he declared. "One day in August, I don't remember exactly which day, a group of English tourists came to the hotel."‌Dianu went on to recall their chance encounter: "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."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."The love story "kept unfolding", however. Dianu went on to describe what attracted him to Sheila, pinpointing 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."‌He closed: "It wasn't a Romanian and and Englishwoman. It was just Dianu and Sheila. Together we truly represented a couple, a single thought and a single feeling. It was Sheila and I together, a whole, completing each other in everything we did and felt."By now Poppy said she felt "overwhelmed" by what she had discovered.But was there a happy ending? There was - as proven by a framed picture of their wedding day - which took place in 1985.Article continues below"Dianu moved to Lancashire and Sheila was a principle librarian co-ordinating 17 libraries in Manchester," Poppy added after carrying out 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, however. But that wasn't quite the end of their story, according to Poppy. "Dianu dedicated the drawing room at the Cultural Center to Sheila, full of books and dedications to his love," she said.Attempts to reunite Dianu with his postcards won't be possible, after Poppy learned he too had died in 2021. "We wanted to share this to make their love story go on for a little bit longer," she closed. "We love your story Sheila and Dianu, and we're so glad we stumbled across it."