Antiques Roadshow viewers were left in tears tonight following the "extraordinary" story of the friendship between two enemy soldiers in WW1.
On tonight's show from Lake Windermere a woman brought in a portrait of her grandfather Leonard Macdonald Baldwin in WW1 done in the trenches in 1918.
The woman said her grandfather was a stretcher bearer who served on The Somme and at Passchendaele.
Leonard kept diaries throughout his time as a soldier and he wrote about having the painting done on January 13, 1918.
Leonard won a military medal for his bravery but before he got his medal an incident happened six months before which changed his life forever.
As he was clearing casualties with his comrades they came across a 20-year-old German soldier Robert Levey. Leonard's fellow soldiers wanted to "finish off" the enemy soldier, but Leonard insisted he was saved and was kept as a prisoner of war.
The woman said: "Unknown to them the soldier was very well educated and could speak French and English and understood that it was because of my granddad's insistence that he saved his life.
"There began a great correspondence between them that continued for the rest of their lives, they were both in touch with each other until they died in their late 90s.
"They visited each other many times, they spoke every year on what they called 'their day' and each of them never forgot what had happened and what it symbolised."
The expert said what an "extraordinary" story it was and said the portrait was worth at least £2,000 with the backstory behind it.
And viewers at home were left incredibly moved by the tale of the two soldiers.
Steve Corley said: "Found the story on #antiquesroadshow regarding the stretcher bearer who saved a German soldier's life and their subsequent life long friendship very moving."
@gillhayward1 said: "The story of the stretcher bearer saving the life of the German soldier. Extraordinary."
@fannyingabout said: "The war story on #AntiquesRoadshow just had me in bits."
Rich Cutts said: "What an amazing WW1 story, so touching."
And Lyn said: "Bit of dust in my eye here."
