Post-box love for lonely Britons

Big-hearted Britons have penned thousands of uplifting messages to be delivered to single seniors on Valentine's Day in a project aimed at alleviating loneliness.

The letters and cards were written in recent weeks and left in ten models of old-fashioned red post-boxes set up in locations across London and several other cities.

Red Letter Days, a gift experience company which came up with the idea, will dispatch the messages to needy elderly recipients in selected care homes during today.

"I said: 'You are loved, you are appreciated, you are cherished,'" Shivanee Pattni, a 26-year-old marketing manager, told AFP after scribbling a note at a box in her central London workplace on Tuesday.

"I think it's great," she added. "It's nice that someone's thinking of them."

The scheme is being run with the help of shared-office provider WeWork, which is hosting seven of the boxes in the lobbies of some of its locations.