Can you really discover love for a second time? One Gwent couple reckon you can and they tell CATHERINE DAVIES their amazing story.

"Love conquers all" could be a maxim made for one couple who have overcome family feuding and painful separation to rediscover love the second time around.

Geoffrey Van Den Hee De, aged 62, and Patricia Potts, aged 58, both of Hampshire Crescent, Newport, have been to hell and back on their road to find happiness and love.

They have endured an agonising five years apart and a rift between Geoffrey and Patricia's disabled 29-year-old son Nick that wrecked their previous wedding plans but now they plan again to marry in a romantic ceremony on May 12 on Clearwater Beech, Florida at sunset.

He calls Patricia his 'princess' and in keeping with that she'll be wearing a pink gown. Their roller coaster relationship started on a blind date nine years ago arranged by one of his friends.

"I was just going through my first divorce and we just sort of clicked. There was just this instant liking of each other," said Patricia. "To be honest with you it happened when we first kissed one another," said Geoffrey, who is a retired butcher and Elvis tribute artist.

They had lots of fun during their 18-month courtship and they even became engaged but their happiness was short lived. "In all honesty I was completely unstable, I'd had a complete mental and physical breakdown; it was overwork, the divorce. My son Nicholas is disabled and whilst it's been very, very hard on both his dad and myself it takes its toll and I didn't feel until recently that I could share my life again with anyone - or not live with anyone - because of the commitment I had to Nick."

Patricia, who works as an auxiliary prison officer at HMP, Usk, felt she had to split up from Geoffrey. She has three grown up children Louise, aged 40, Lee, 38, who have both accepted Geoffrey and Nick, who suffers from spina bifida and hydrocephalus.

Geoffrey, who had already gone through two divorces, was devastated by the separation and they lost touch during this troubled time. "I felt gutted. I just got on with it, I just went about my life and I threw myself into my music. I packed up and went abroad to Lanzarote."

Patricia said: "Geoffrey was not really in my life at that time. I'd hurt Geoffrey so deeply that he just needed to be left alone but my sisters kept in touch and they knew that he still loved me and he wanted me. I was just so confused anyway that I ended up remarrying my ex-husband and it was for all the right reasons. I was lonely, I was struggling with my family, with Nicholas living in the conditions he was and I just felt that I wanted to reunite the family but it was the wrong reason."

Nick was so ill at this time his heart actually stopped beating twice during ambulance trips. After an operation on his brain he started to recover but his sense of security was short-lived as his parents split up again after five years.

She never forgot Geoffrey and was often haunted by his playing when she heard him busk in Newport. "There was a tug all the time pulling me back."

A wake-up call came in the form of a song from the hit film Moulin Rouge about reciprocal love being the greatest thing in life and this drove her to seek out the man she loved. She knocked his door and that was the moment Geoffrey had been longing for.

Shortly afterwards she left her husband and, despite a brief separation, they have now formed a lasting bond.

"It's great, great. The sky's the limit because it's brilliant, absolutely brilliant," he said and that's a sentiment echoed by Patricia. "It's absolutely wonderful."

Geoffrey, who has two grown up children Joanne, 42, and Geoffrey, 34, said: "We don't have to go off and have affairs and find comfort in somebody else. We've got it all here and it's a great feeling," adding: "I love being romantic with Patricia, to be free with your feelings and be romantic. It's great."

Patricia became a Christian when they reunited and now their faith forms a big part of their lives together. "I see us going forward with a lot of love and happiness and peace with the Lord in our lives," she said.