Simple XML to HTML XSLT question

Hi all,

Why doesn't this work?

Code snippet from XML file:

  <page>
    <leftCol><item>Hello</item></leftCol>
    <leftCol><item>Goodbye</item></leftCol>
  </page>

Code snippets from XSL file:

  <tr>
    <td align="right">
    <xsl:apply-templates select="/page/leftCol/*" />
    </td>
  </tr>

  [...]

  <xsl:template match="leftCol">
    <xsl:value-of select="item" /><br />
  </xsl:template>


I want to create a table data element with 'hello' and 'goodbye' on
separate lines, like this:

   Hello
 Goodbye

... instead the table data element is displayed like this:

  HelloGoodbye

... so for some reason the break tag is not getting through, or at least
Mozilla Firefox refuses to display it this way.

Any tips for an XML/XSL newbie anyone?

TIA

sdt