The best and worst Valentine’s gifts, according to Telegraph readers

“Small gestures are the best,” Anna from the South East says. She remembers receiving a bicycle bell for safer cycling as a student in Oxford: “He attached it in the early hours as a surprise.”

The most interesting gift that reader Pip, from the South East, has given were bright red socks. “My other half modelled them for me, but nothing else.”

What started out as an affordable gift is now becoming a serious commitment for Londoner Marie’s husband: “He always gives me roses, one more for every year. We have been married 50 years this year.”

Fiona, from the South West, also has a rose-giving tradition with her husband, whom she otherwise describes as “romantic as a slug”. The couple lived in Hong Kong for many years, where “it is customary to send eleven red roses because ‘you are the 12th and treasured one’. That was quite sweet,” she recalls.

“Years later, he realised he’d forgotten to buy me a Valentine card so set about designing and printing one. I was presented with a sheet of white paper with a black heart in the middle.

“Ever the engineer, he had also drawn an arrow pointing to the heart and written the word ‘RED’. It still makes me laugh today.”

Best: Loving memories

The best gifts sometimes cost nothing at all – but mean the world to these readers.