An agent’s matchmaking skills have ‘blossomed’ into an £11,000 booking to Japan – with another in the pipeline – after she suggested two widows who didn’t know each other would make the perfect holiday companions.

Michelle Wood, a homeworker with Holidaysplease in Brough, East Riding of Yorkshire, had previously booked holidays for both couples when the husbands were alive.

She said: “Both couples used to do really nice long-haul tours but since they had lost their husbands, the women hadn’t really been able to.

“I kept bumping into them in the supermarket and I knew they missed going on nice holidays and I said to them both separately: ‘You need to meet my friend, she’s in the same situation as you and she loves to go on your type of holidays. You’d get on really well’.

“They both came round to my house to meet and they hit it off. Seeing them chat like old friends as they left my house was lovely.

“They came back a few weeks later and have made a booking to go to Japan to see the cherry blossom, which is something they had both wanted to do.

“They’re lovely ladies, in their 70s, very independent. It’s fantastic to see them get on together and since I introduced them to each other, they’ve become good friends.

“Being a travel agent can be difficult sometimes, particularly during COVID, so it’s nice to have a good story to tell.”

In addition to the Japan holiday, scheduled for next March, the two women also want to book a £10,000 holiday to the Galapagos Islands.

Holidaysplease Sales Team Manager Sue Preston said: “Well done Michelle for making two elderly ladies’ lives that little bit better, when they lost their travelling companions.”