A CIVIL servant took advantage of the leap day tradition and asked her partner to marry her in a proposal on board one of the region’s most famous steam engines.

Fiona Boubert won a competition with Mills and Boon to create the perfect romantic moment for her to pop the question to her partner, Neil Kennedy, from Hartlepool.

And the romance publisher set up the scene of a steam train at Alresford railway station, in Hampshire, with the help of the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust, in Darlington, and the Tornado locomotive.

Miss Boubert, 45, from Edinburgh, said: “It went very well. He said yes, but I was fairly certain he would.”

Explaining why she chose to propose, she said: “I would say I am a bit of a romantic.

“I do believe in gentlemen doing certain things, but us ladies only get a chance every four years, so I thought, ‘Why not?’. Obviously, I love him and want to spend my life with him, but I was aware it was the 29th coming up and thought I would just do it.

“I only entered the competition last week, so I only had a week to plot behind his back. I told him we were going on a mystery holiday that I had won and that we were flying to Heathrow and being picked up by car and that was all I knew – it all worked very well.

“I told Neil he has to plan an even bigger surprise for the wedding, something spectacular.”

Mr Kennedy, 46, who works for rail booking firm thetrainline.com, said: “It felt different, very, very surprising, I had absolutely no problem saying yes.

“I am not one for knowing what date it is, so it was only after I had been asked that it dawned on me what the date was, it was a complete shock.”

Miss Boubert said she chose the steam railway because Mr Kennedy loves vintage trains as well as because of his job.

She said trains had also played an important part in their relationship, because their first kiss was at a railway station and Mr Kennedy had travelled regularly from his home in Hartlepool by train to visit her before he moved to be with her in Scotland.