Man proposes to girlfriend with cryptic personalised crossword

He spent three months planning it

Finding a creative way to propose to your partner is no mean feat - ideally, most people try and come up with something personal and unique.

And that’s exactly what 30-year-old Edward Fraser achieved when he proposed to his now fiancée Rachael Herman, 28, with a bespoke cryptic crossword.

The couple, from Norwich, are crossword devotees and regularly tackle the challenges together.

With this in mind, Fraser spent three months crafting coded clues to create the unique crossword that would ultimately appear in his local Eastern Daily Press.

As well as including facts about Herman, the crossword ended with Fraser asking her to marry him.

One clue was “The Black Prince begins untangling odes and seeks her final response to 27 Across” - which has the answer “Edward does ask R”.

The clue to 27 across was “It’s a question of love” - which answered “will you marry me”.

And social researcher Fraser’s thoughtfulness paid off - Herman said yes.

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“I was looking for something different and wanted to make it special because she is a special person,” he said.

“It was quite hard initially as I was trying to think of really cool clues. But I started off with a grid in Excel and I was sticking in letters and black squares to make the crossword. I had the random answers ready and just started to backwards to make the clues.”

The day that Herman, a teacher, sat down to do the crossword in question was actually the couple’s seventh anniversary.

“I had no idea it was coming, it was such a lovely surprise and Edward played along really well,” she said.

“Because we always do the crosswords together and he was playing along with me, it just like normal so it was really convincing.”

Fraser had consider how cryptic to make the final proposal clue because he wanted to make sure Herman would get it.

“The ‘will you marry me’ clue was made easier for Rachael but I did think about making that really cryptic. I just guided her around a bit before that and made sure she didn't spend too long on that side of the crossword.

“Ultimately the clue was ‘It’s a question of love’ because that is what it is. I was toying with the idea of when she got the answer to it, I would pretend ‘oh that’s interesting, I wonder what that’s about’ but I thought that would be too harsh.”

But Herman solved all the clues with no problems.

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“To be honest I got a couple of clues and doing the dividing lines I had solved it in my head,” she explained. “I thought in my head does that mean ‘will you marry me?’

“And then the heart was pounding because I thought ‘was this for me?’ But I didn’t say anything because I just wanted to be sure. A bit of me kind of wanted to play Edward at his own game as well and let him sweat it out.”

It was when Herman got to the last clue that she knew for certain the crossword was made for her.

“I played dumb a little bit, like ‘Ooh I wonder what that is’,” she said. “But after that I just couldn’t concentrate anymore, so I decided to write the answer down.”

But Fraser just wanted it to be over - he had the ring out ready and duly placed it on his new fiancée’s finger after she said yes.

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Herman had originally got into crosswords after doing them with her father Terry when growing up. With this in mind, Fraser decided to seek Terry’s help in creating the proposal puzzle.

“I think my dad is feeling pretty chuffed that the plan worked,” Herman said. “My dad has got the bragging rights too.

“This was definitely the perfect way to do it as I am quite a private person and it was meaningful, informal and intimate. It was very well done and very convincing - I love a cryptic crossword.”

The couple - who met as students and were friends for three years before they started dating - are planning to tie the knot in August 2019.