The real Shirley Valentines

British women are living up to the image of Shirley Valentine by enjoying holiday flings with local men.

Almost a third of women admit to having enjoyed a romance with a Spanish, Greek or Italian man while on holiday, according to a new study.

In the 1989 film Shirley Valentine, Pauline Collins warmed hearts as a long-suffering housewife who decamped to Greece and fell in love with a bar owner played by Tom Conti.

Nearly half of the 500 women questioned in the survey for Muller yogurt said that they would move abroad tomorrow if they could.

A Muller spokesman said: "The rate of women saying they've been romanced by locals abroad suggests that British men should be more vigilant."