WHEN romantic Steve Mclean decided to propose to his girlfriend, he did not just drive her to a local beauty spot or restaurant to pop the question.

He woke Lucy Campling at 4am to take her to an airfield, where they clambered on board a light aircraft and flew to Jersey. Then they walked to a deserted beach before Steve, 23, of Spurriergate, got down on bended knee.

Steve told today how Lucy, also 23, of Fishergate, had no idea what was going on until he proposed.

“She hadn’t got a clue,” he said. “She kept saying: ‘Where are we going?’ As we flew over the French coastline, she was asking: ‘Is that Land’s End?’ “Even when we were on the beach, she didn’t know why we were there. When I asked her to marry me, she just screamed: “Yes, yes, I will, I will!”

He said Lucy had been hinting she would like him to propose previously, but he had just said: “I’ll do it when the time is right.”

Steve, who works at the church and charity organisation Global, said he had hatched the plan with Joe Langer, a student he knew at the University of York who is a qualified pilot and is also a member of the church.

He said he and Lucy planned to get married next year at St Michael le Belfrey Church.

Lucy, who also works at Global, said she had had no idea Steve was going to propose until he went down on one knee.

She said she had been expecting him to pop the question, but not until the first anniversary of them going out on September.

“When he asked, I just squealed, ‘Yes, I will, I will!” She said the setting for his proposal had been wonderful.

“It was an absolutely gorgeous beach. It was completely deserted.”