THE PRAYERS of a 65-year-old retired vicar have been answered after he tied the knot with his 21-year-old Filipino pen-pal.

Retired prison chaplain Brian Flux, of Maryport, married Roma Gabe, the oldest daughter of a Filipino rice farmer, at Cockermouth register office last week after a year-long romance, conducted mostly through letters.

The grandfather, who was lonely after going through a divorce three years ago, popped the question by phone after asking her family for their permission.

The couple only met for the first time in February. Despite the 44-year age difference, Mr Flux says he and his sweetheart are just happy being together at their Crosby Street home in Maryport.

“There’s no need to be lonely,” said Mr Flux, whose new in-laws in the Filipino province of Pangasinan are in their 40s and have given the union their blessing.

“Roma is a very affectionate, very direct, and very intelligent person. She’s very shy but her English is good.

“I wrote a little each day and then sent off the letters. It was very exciting, something entirely new. When I found her, I was very lonely and I needed somebody new in my life to make it worthwhile.

“I proposed on Christmas Day while Roma was in Saudi Arabia working as a domestic. She then went back to the Philippines in January and I went out there and met her for the first time on February 5.

“I stayed there with her family for three weeks. They were wonderful. Everything was new, and I arrived at the airport almost in a state of panic, but Roma stepped out of the crowd, gave me a quick hug, took my hand and I was completely at peace. It was lovely.

“At the same time, I was prepared that if things hadn’t worked out, I would have been on the next plane out of there. But we got on fine.”

Mr Flux wanted to draw a veil over the reaction to the marriage from his family.

He added: “I’ve lived my life until now for other people. The point is that I have been unhappy and miserable and I could not really see the point of living. She’s given me that point.”

Mr Flux spent much of his career working as chaplain at Haverigg Prison in south Cumbria and also held the rank of major with the Territorial Army.

He retired in 1992 after he suffered a collapse linked to suspected meningitis the previous year.

The clergyman met Roma through a London introductions agency called The Philippine Club and was writing to her for about a year before they met.

A mutual interest in music helped bring them together, said Mr Flux, a former army musician who plays clarinet and saxophone.

He said: “Roma is very interested in karaoke, and before she came over one of her first questions to me was: ‘Have you got a microphone? Because I can’t live without one.’

“She has a beautiful voice and I want to record it and send it off to somebody because she has the potential to make a living. She’s a good cook and would one day like to open her own restaurant.

“When I realised things were getting serious I wrote to Roma’s parents asking what they thought. They were very supportive. I’ve got to accept men will look at her because she’s a beautiful girl.

“My sense of humour will help me cope. When I was a young man, I’d sometimes see a beautiful woman and think ‘what’s she doing with that ugly fellow?’

“If some people have difficulty with it, it’s their problem. If other people are as sensitive to me as I have tried to be with them, then we would have no problem at all.

“People in the Philippines are very poor, but clean and fresh. There’s a simplicity about life.

“In this country, we’ve got everything, but we’ve got nothing, while they have nothing but seem to have everything.

“Having said that, she’s finding it cold here for the middle of June. But we’ve met some Filipino people here at a Cockermouth car boot sale, and we’ve met two at church. It’s going great. They’re lovely people, really genuine.”

The couple, who have not had a honeymoon, are job-hunting because they need “extra income” after buying a house in the Philippines so they have somewhere to stay while there.