Sunshine, property and a periscope into people’s lives, with a combination of chatty, likeable - and endlessly patient - presenters.

This has been A Place in the Sun’s winning formula for 25 years, as more than 1,000 people have been helped to buy their dream homes abroad. On Monday at 6pm the massive hit - re-runs of which constantly populate the lifestyle schedules - is launching a sister show, A Place in the Sun: What Happened Next?

For nosy fans it’s a fantastic opportunity to catch up with the lives of some of the colourful characters whose endless wishlists (with frequently limited budgets) the good natured presenters tried to meet. The spoke to three sets of UK househunters who have tied the knot since buying foreign properties through the show.

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Widowers Colin and Janet Barnes, 66, met aboard a Norwegian cruise in August 2018, on a trip organised by Way Up - a support group for the widowed - and say going on A Place in The Sun was “life changing.” It enabled them to realise a dream they had each shared with the partners they lost to buy somewhere abroad.

Colin’s first wife, Rosie, 59, died of breast cancer in January 2018, while Janet’s husband, Ian, 60, collapsed in June 2017 during a holiday in Tobago and died of a heart attack. As Colin and Janet chatted, they discovered they had spoken at length with their respective spouses about buying a foreign holiday home.

Janet tells the Mirror: “Myself and Ian had always said ‘when we retire and it’s the big ‘when’, we will buy a house’. His dream was to be in rural France.”

Likewise, Rosie and Colin, 67, were going to buy abroad - but in Portugal. So, when love blossomed between Colin, who has two sons, and Janet, who has one son, they decided to honour the dream they had promised the loved ones they had lost. “We had that shared dream to buy a house abroad and we knew we wanted to do it,” says Janet.

After going to A Place in the Sun roadshow, the couple applied to appear on the show and were over-the-moon to be picked to join presenter, Danni Menzies, in Portugal’s Eastern Algarve in September 2020. Overjoyed when the third house they saw exactly fitted their vision, they snapped it up for 410k Euros two days after filming finished.

“We didn’t buy on camera as we had to look at our finances before we could buy it,” says Colin. “But we were able to make an offer a couple of days later.” After the legal work was completed in a record couple of months, they packed up and left the UK for good to set up home in their new rural retreat - poignantly naming the Rosianna, in memory of Rosie and Ian.

“Ian and Rosie and ourselves wanted to have a house abroad,” explains Janet. “The house belongs to us all and our blended family. They will always be a part of who we are.”

And, after some cosmetic work and building some decade and an outside bar, they decided Rosianna would make the perfect wedding venue when they tied the knot in January 2022, in the grounds of their garden, with their immediate family looking on.

Later in the evening, they were joined by local friends they’d met in Portugal. “We danced the night away,” says Colin. “We got married in what we call the wedding garden. It was wonderful. We love living in the countryside,” says Janet. “It’s quite rural but we are only 20 minutes from Faro airport.”

“You step outside and it’s warm,” adds Colin. “We definitely have no regrets.” Childhood sweethearts Jenn and Elliot Jenkins, had to postpone their wedding because of Covid. Crete felt like the ideal setting for the occasion, after they bought an apartment there on the show, with the help of presenter Laura Hamilton, in August 2020.

Jenn, 36, a photographer, says: “We actually really liked the first property we saw. “We got it for a great price of £84k and loved the location.”

Three months after their legal work was completed in May 2021, Covid travel restrictions lifted and Jenn and Elliot, who bought the two-bedroom Olive Garden apartment in Almyrida with his sister, flew out to Crete to stay in their new holiday home.

Jenn explains : “Having our own place is amazing and we are very aware that not everyone is fortunate enough to have a holiday home. We love it.” And it provided the perfect spot for their September 2021 wedding at a venue nearby.

“We had 37 guests and it was so nice to get married there,” says Jenn. “We’d had to postpone our wedding by 18 months because of Covid and it was really emotional. We were in our own little wedding bubble!” A year after starting to rent out their apartment in May 2022, Jenn and Elliot, 36, a construction company director, made the decision to live in Crete for a year - although, as their own property was occupied, they rented nearby.

“We had such a great time living in Crete. Will we go back? Who knows but it’s nice to be able to still get out there on holiday, “ says Jenn. “We go two to three times a year.”

Like Colin and Janet, John Stoddart, 66, a celebrity photographer who has taken glamorous pictures of Daniel Craig, Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta Jones, wanted to leave the UK for a new life in the Greek islands when he went on A Place in the Sun. And in 2019, presenter Ben Hillman, helped then single John, accompanied by his friend Helen, to find a home in Skopelos.

Falling in love with the third property, a two-bedroom upside down house, he says: “It’s a beautifully constructed house on the Greek island. “I bought it for £100k. I had become disillusioned with my life in Kent and, because I had no kids, I wanted to make a permanent move.”

Shortly after he appeared on the programme, John went on a cruise on the Queen Mary 2, sailing from Southampton to New York. His sense of adventure awoken by the property show, he met his now wife, Adrienne Crow, 58, an author.

“I was a guest speaker and we had a little on-board romance,” he reveals. “We became a couple, Covid came along and we ended up living together.” Adrienne happily joined John on his Greek adventure and, in 2021, they also bought a two-bedroom apartment in Athens.

Two years later in December 2023, they got married – on the ship where they had first met, accompanied by two friends. “It’s been a crazy, amazing surprise,” adds Adrienne. “I give all the credit to John. It was his adventure that he has let me come on.

“Living in keeps us on our toes, it keeps us young and it’s beautiful, warm and so lovely.” John adds: “Going on A Place in the Sun has definitely changed my life for the better. They helped me so much and the advice they gave on buying a property was brilliant.”

All three couples understandably have no regrets. “You have to keep moving forward in life,” says Adrienne. “Don’t be fearful and look for advice. I get a lot of information from from others who are expats. I can’t even count the number of questions they’ve answered!”

And Janet advises those considering a life in the sun to jump at the chance. “If you always say you are going to look for a place when you are older, don’t wait just do it,” she says. “Going on A Place in the Sun was great.”

* A Place in the Sun: What Happened Next? broadcasts from Monday 17th March every weekday at 6pm on Channel 4.