When David Dopacio tells friends he plans to spend more time with his family when he retires from his caretaking job he means it more than most men approaching the age of 65.

David arrived in Sussex 38 years ago, intending to spend just three months at college learning English.

Then he was offered work and decided to stay because the wages were better than anything he could earn back home, even though he was an accountant.

However, David's wife, Maria, found the English language and the weather much harder to cope with and she returned home to La Coruna in north-west Spain.

For many couples it would have been the end of the road, but not for David and Maria.

Their 38-year marriage is as solid as ever, even though over the intervening years they have only talked on the telephone and seen each other two or three times a year during holidays.

David says those holidays are like being "on honeymoon" all over again, and he must be right because he is the proud father of two sons, both in their twenties.

Now David is looking forward to resuming his marriage to Maria on a full-time basis next month when he leaves University College, Chichester, where he first started work as an interpreter before being offered a caretaking job. He says he is not worried about picking up married life where he left off.

He said: "I think it will be harder for me than Maria because I have lived in England for so long but I know it will work out because I am very adaptable.

"When Maria and I see each other for holidays it has been like courting all the time. We are also very good friends."

David says he sees nothing strange in the relationship: "After all, sailors go away for many months at a time without seeing their wives."

It was in 1962 that David arrived in Chichester to improve his English in the hope that it would help his career as an accountant.

After failing his first set of exams he was offered work as an interpreter at the city's Bishop Otter College, which is now a university, because many of its catering staff were from Spain.

David found he was earning more in a week than he took home in a month in La Coruna.

He said: "In Spain people who worked behind a desk were just not valued."

But soon after Maria arrived to join David, her mother had a stroke and she returned to Spain to care for her.

Meanwhile, as the interpreting work began to run out, the college could only offer David a job as a caretaker.

It still paid more than he could earn at home and he decided to stay. Maria, however, did not come back. He said: "She could not speak English and the weather was cold and it was hard to settle down so she stayed in Spain and runs a hairdressing salon.

"Our marriage is fantastic. We are on the phone every weekend and I go home on holiday twice a year and Maria often comes over here for Easter. We are not in each other's pockets and it is like courting all the time."

David says if he had stayed in Spain he would never have been able to afford to put his sons through university. Luis, 28, is a dentist and David, 26, an engineer.

The money he manages to save from his live-in job and send back to Spain has also allowed him and Maria, 51, to buy several apartments which they rent out.

Asked if he and Maria can take up where they left off when he finally says Adios to England, David said: "No problem."