I Found Love At The Xmas Grotto!

Elves Wanted. Ruby Deevoy’s mouse cursor hovered over the ad on a job search site she had been browsing since losing her job as a nanny in London.

With Christmas looming and bills mounting, her hunt for work was getting desperate.

“Better than nothing. Maybe it will be fun…” she thought as she clicked the link and hit ‘Apply’, sending off her CV with high hopes.

Little did she know on the other side of London, Jack, then 30, a photographer, was in the same boat – having been dropped from a big commission and left needing a temporary position to cover the quiet winter months.

“It wasn’t a dream job, but the idea of dressing up every day didn’t sound too terrible,” Ruby, 30, tells New Idea. “I got a call inviting me in for an interview just a few days after sending my CV and a couple of weeks later I was an elf !”

By mid-November the Grotto was in full swing, with queues of families waiting to meet Father Christmas and hundreds of kids to entertain with songs, books and games. But Ruby’s mind wasn’t always on the job at hand.

“I noticed Jack’s voice right away. I heard him read the Grotto theme story of The Wizard of Oz to the visiting children in his lilting Scottish accent,” says Ruby. “When I did finally get a chance to see him, his looks matched his voice. Tall, slim, with dark hair, blue eyes and a heartbreakingly cheeky grin! He was gorgeous.”

Work in the Grotto was full-on, but in between her elf duties Ruby took every chance she got to chat to Jack. In a cruel twist of fate, they were almost always scheduled on different shifts.