1. QUEEN VICTORIA: FOCUS ON A MEMORY YOU'VE SHARED TOGETHER

Create the structure around a shared experience, for example the first time you met, a memorable date, even your wedding! This 1839 letter from a soon to be married Prince Albert to Queen Victoria, focuses on the young lovers last meeting:

'How that moment shines for me still when I was close to you, with your hand in mine. Those days flew by so quickly, but our separation will fly equally so'.

3. ELIZABETH I: WRITE EVERY WORD LIKE IT'S YOUR LAST

Elizabeth l and her suitor, Robert Dudley frequently exchanged love letters until his death in 1588, whilst on route to Kenilworth Castle; which Dudley created to impress his Queen in 1575. After Elizabeth’s death 15 years later, a small box was found by her bed, in it was Dudley’s final letter to her, Elizabeth had written on the envelope ‘His last letter’.

5. LETTERS FROM THE SOMME: BE YOURSELF

Cornish boy John Glasson Thomas ‘Tommy’ met Gertrude Brooks ‘Gertie’ on the eve of WW1. The two formed an instant bond and wrote to each other through Tommy’s retention at Pendennis Castle and the Battle of the Somme. The letters are a mix of day to day news; Cornish pasty based jokes, and small bursts of affection:

Tommy to Gertie, 16th October, The Somme:

(Your)’letter arrived just before we marched and I can assure you I was delighted to get it. Twas like a ray of light on what had been a dull time of weary work for me, and shed a sort of consoling ray on the winding up'.

Tommy died in 1917, cutting their love story tragically short. However Tommy’s letters stayed with Gertie, and she never married. Years later Gertie wrote to her niece: 'nobody could take the place of the one I lost'.