A couple stranded in New Zealand because of the coronavirus lockdown still managed to pose for a picture of their favourite local newspaper.

Robert Dawson and his wife Yvonne from the Isle of Sheppey flew to the other side of the world on Saturday, March 14 hoping to have a holiday of a lifetime with their daughter, son-in-law and four grandchildren.

But their dream break turned into a nightmare as soon as they landed.

Mr Dawson, 71, said: “The day after we arrived, New Zealand introduced a 14-day isolation for all visitors.

“After being here for 11 days, the country went into full lockdown for four weeks and imposed a seven-day state of emergency which has now been extended.

“The airline has cancelled our flight back and, in fact, stopped all flights until at least the end of May.

“We have been restricted to the house or garden and a daily walk. We don’t know when or how we will get back.

“At least we remembered to take a copy of the Sheerness Times Guardian with us and posed with it in the back garden with our daughter and three of her children.

“Her eldest insisted on taking the photo. It is lovely to see them but it is not exactly the holiday we had envisaged.”

The couple had been hoping to go on sight-seeing trips around their daughter’s home in Oxford in the Waimakariri district of Canterbury.

Mr Dawson, a father-of-four, lives in Minster and is chairman of the Sheppey Miniature Model Engineering Society which has hosted the Sheppey Sci-Fi festival and runs the model railway track at Barton’s Point Coastal Park, Sheerness.

The retired engineer from Canning Town Glass hit the headlines before after suffering a major heart attack in August 2018 when he collapsed after the model club’s annual meeting and ended up in a coma.

Oxford, originally a logging town, has around 2,100 people and a high street a mile long. It has won awards for the most beautiful village and the most beautiful toilet.

* Readers of the Sheerness Times Guardian are encouraged to send snaps of the paper when they take it on holiday.

The paper is now asking for photographs of it in unusual locations while everyone is on coronavirus lockdown.

Email a jpeg to timesguardian@thekmgroup.co.uk including details of yourself and when, where and why the picture was taken.

Read more: Stories from the Isle of Sheppey here