Lei Feng's mystery girlfriend revealed

The mystery girlfriend of model soldier Lei Feng , whom he always referred to as his elder sister, has finally come forward.

The disclosure in the Beijing Youth Daily follows the paper's interview last week with Qiao Anshan , the worker who admitted driving the lorry which knocked over a telegraph pole that killed Lei in 1962.

Beneath a blurred black and white photograph of Wang Peilin, the paper reported the story of the farm labourer who became so close to Lei when they worked together at the Tuanshan Lake state farm that he named her his jie jie or elder sister.

Their friendship began to blossom in February 1958 when 22-year-old Lei gave Ms Wang, four years his senior, a book about Liu Hulan, one of the Communist Party's revolutionary martyrs.

Lei gave her a diary with a photograph of himself inside. On the first page he wrote: 'Wang Peilin, you are a loyal daughter of the party. I hope your youth blossoms fragrantly like a flower on the motherland. Great persistence makes great ideals. May you become a real soldier in our common work.' Lei later went to join the Anshan steelworks, but before he left Ms Wang gave him a satin-covered diary.

The couple lost touch after Ms Wang moved to Anhui province but on March 6, 1963, she saw Lei's photograph in newspapers which reported his good deeds and Chairman Mao Zedong's eulogy. She was reportedly moved to tears.