Their families feared the age gap was too great and even the British and Tunisian governments tried to keep them apart.

But the bond between 52-year-old Bradford grandmother Veronica Garcia and her husband Mohammed Solah Tarkhani, 27, refused to be broken.

The couple are now celebrating the beginning of married life together at their home in Allerton. It is a fairy-tale ending to what was a fairy-tale romance which started after a chance encounter in the Hotel Sophia in Hammamet, Tunisia, two years ago.

Veronica, originally from St Helens in Merseyside, literally bumped into Mohammed while carrying a heavy bag to the beach in Tunisia, North Africa, where she was on holiday. The pair instantly hit it off and a romance followed leading to their marriage in January in Tunisia.

But it has taken months of tireless campaigning before Mohammed was granted a visa to live with his wife in England.

Fast food worker Veronica said: "I just got sick of people saying 'ohhh, an older lady with a younger man won't work' and 'he'll just leave when he comes to England'.

"We've been seeing each other for almost two years and now we are man and wife and he's living with me in Bradford.

"It's taken an incredible amount of effort and at times I thought I might have to go and live in Tunisia which would have been much harder because I don't speak a word of Arabic. But we've finally done it and I'm overjoyed.

"We started applying for a visa last August but we got refused because I didn't have a full-time job. I came back to England and I worked almost non-stop, sometimes holding down three jobs, just so we could be together. Bradford West MP Marsha Singh said I should go out and marry Mohammed in Tunisia, which I did in January.

"Then I went out again at the end of April and this time the British Embassy said he could have a visa. The customs officers even shook Mohammed's hand at Heathrow because they'd read about our story in the national papers."

Mohammed has already found temporary work and the couple, who are both keen cooks, would eventually like to open an English/Tunisian takeaway.

He said: "I just want to be with Veronica. We love each other so much. Veronica could have lived in Tunisia but it would have been very hard so we decided I should come to England. It's hard to find work because I'm still learning English but at least we are together in the same country."