My eight treasured meetings with Pope

Reader Patricia Van der Valk, aged 68, from Wombourne, met the Pope eight times between 1983 and 1996 and has donated scrapbooks of memorabilia to the Catholic National Library, in Farnborough, Hampshire.

Her picture was published in the Express & Star as part of a feature on Dawn Crystal, in Amblecote, where the framed photo graces the shop wall.

But her identity was unknown to engravers Reg and John Everton until she came forward to solve the mystery.

Grandmother Mrs Van der Valk, who lives in Walk Lane and attends St Bernadette's Church, presented the glass chalice to the Pope during a visit to the Vatican in Rome in October 1986 with her late mother, Elsie Haskew.

She said: "That was the fourth time I met John Paul.

"We used to try and go close to his birthday or Christmas. We knew for certain he would be at home then because he used to travel so much.

"We had the chalice engraved with 'Peace Be With You' to commemorate the 40th anniversary of his ordination."

From the year John Paul was first installed in 1978, until he died in 2005, Mrs Van Der Valk wrote around 100 letters to the Vatican and was rewarded with a personal meeting each time she visited Rome.

"I used to write to say we were coming and we were always assured of tickets in the VIP section."

In 1985, on her third meeting, when she was then known as Patricia Haskew, she handed over a silver tankard inscribed with a birthday message for the Pope. The former secretary at Regis School, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton, also gave him a bottle of Banks's light ale to pour into the tankard.

Mrs Van der Valk met her husband Siemon, who has now passed away, in August 1987 through church.

The couple were introduced by a neighbour when they were at St Michael's Church, Penn. While on honeymoon in Rome, Mrs Van Der Valk enjoyed a fifth audience with the Pope, but for Siemon it was a new experience.

The couple, who lived in Coalway Road, Penn, handed a 68th birthday cake to the Pope along with a bottle of Polish vodka and a clock.

And to mark their wedding on New Year's Day in 1988 the couple received two rosaries bearing the former Pontiff's personal coat of arms. Mrs Van der Valk was invited to a private mass in the Pope's chapel at The Vatican in 1996.

Due to ill health, the devoted follower and keen Wolves fan has never met the current Pope Benedict, but she says the precious memories of her meetings with his predecessor will always be held dear.