A Hampshire man has left his wife after meeting a childhood sweetheart he had not seen for 45 years. The pair were reunited on the Internet.

John Pearce walked out on his wife of 20 years holding one suitcase to meet up with old friend Jackie Butt and never went back home.

They met each other on the Friends Reunited website, the Internet site which puts old school friends back in touch with each other.

Back in his home town of Plymouth John had a wife, two children, and a career with the post office spanning 28 years. He left them all.

And just ten days after they first met up the couple were engaged and later this month they will get married.

Jackie and John, now both 56, met at Marchwood Primary school in 1952 at the age of five and quickly became friends.

The school used Marchwood Community Centre, known then as the Red Barn, for sports and drama, and the pupils had to walk there in pairs.

"I used to get as close to Jackie as I could in the hope that I would get to walk with her," said John.

Jackie added: "We played kiss and chase in the playground and I remember pinning John up against the wall!"

John said: "I was the shy type. Although I wanted to be caught, I didn't want to show it."

It was because John was shy that the two lost touch when Jackie moved to Noadswood Secondary (now Comprehensive) School a year before John.

But he kept something to remind him of his friend.

"We all had a hymn book so when Jackie left I had her hymn book and I kept it all those years," he said.

After they lost touch John went into the navy as a seaman before joining the Post Office in Plymouth in 1974. He married and had two children.

For 26 years Jackie ran a rescue home for rabbits in Hythe. She has been divorced for 18 years and has four children.

But on April 29 2002 their lives changed when Jackie was persuaded by one of her daughters to join the Friends Reunited website. She said: "John's name leapt out at me."

She wrote to him by e-mail and he replied the next day.

"The amazing thing was, we had exactly the same memories," said John.

After several weeks of e-mailing the couple arranged to meet up in Southampton.

"It was as if we had never been apart," said John.

"We knew we loved each other before we even met up."

So, taking drastic steps, John resigned from his job and, with his one suitcase, stayed in Southampton. The couple found a home to rent in Marchwood and just ten days later John proposed.

"It was never a question of saying 'Let's see how we get on,'" he said. "We knew we got on."

Despite the obstacles they had to overcome, and the people they hurt, Jackie and John both firmly believe it was all worth it.

"Nothing comes easy," said John. "But this was how it was always meant to be."

The couple will be married at Hythe church on April 24.

Following the ceremony the happy couple are having their wedding photos taken at Marchwood School, where it all started.