A young mum whose husband died without warning three days before Christmas was able to smile again for the first time this week – thanks to the Citizen and a series of kind strangers.

Leslie Lovell, who was just 30, collapsed from a massive brain haemorrhage as he was clearing the snow from the driveway of his home.

Days earlier he had posed for happy photographs and video film during a family day out at Middleton Hall's Christmas display with his wife and childhood sweetheart Caroline, their toddler daughter and their five-month-old baby son.

But the all-in-one camera disappeared from the buggy and the disappointed couple assumed it had been stolen. Caroline, who reported it missing to police and centre security, had no idea this would be the last precious footage she would ever take of her husband.

Last week 31-year-old Caroline sobbed as she appealed through the Citizen for the return of the camera's memory card.

On it were films and pictures dating right back to the birth of their daughter Phebe as well as all the shots of Leslie with baby Ayrton, now five months old.

None had been backed up on a computer.

"These memories are irreplaceable. Without them I have nothing to show my children so they will remember their daddy," said Caroline, who met Leslie, known as Rich, when they were at a Bletchley primary school together.

Over the weekend, Caroline's sad story was read by a Waitrose worker called Nikki, who remembered a camcorder had been handed in by an honest customer just before Christmas which was still safety tucked away in the storeroom.

Nikki told her manager Andrew Newton, who contacted security and managed to find Caroline's family contact details.

He called Caroline's twin sister Sarah and, with the help of a battery charger loaned by John Lewis, let her view the pictures.

"I saw Rich and the children - it was wonderful," said Sarah. "The camera must have dropped off the buggy just outside Waitrose, where they parked that day.

"Caroline burst into tears when we told her.

"She was so relieved and so grateful.

"We just want to say a huge thank you to the Citizen, to Waitrose, to John Lewis – and, of course, to the honest person who found the camera."