TWO local youngsters fell head over heels for each other while working on the BEN's popular Newsnet page - a feature written by young people, for young people.

And now the pair of lovebirds have become engaged.

Alison Barton, aged 19, and Gareth Williams, 20, were just two of the young people involved in writing the page back in 1996.

And with six months they were an item. At the time Alison was a pupil at Canon Slade and her beau was a student at Wigan and Leigh College. Both had an interest in the media.

Catalyst

And that common bond was the catalyst that got them together.

"I liked him from the start," says Alison.

The pair of lovebirds are now studying at Warrington University. Alison of Churchill Drive, Little Lever, is studying journalism and Gareth, of Wigan Road, Atherton, is into the second year of a television production course.

But Alison is putting marriage on the backburner until her studies have finished and she's landed herself a job.

Her fiance, on the other hand, is according to Alison, obsessed with buying household goods - for a house they don't yet have.

She explained that Gareth's strange obsession started after they received an ironing board as an engagement present.

But with no house to store his purchases, the growing collection of household items, is being stored in Alison's parents' loft, and at Gareth's grandads.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.