A COUPLE celebrated their platiunum wedding anniversary on the exactly the same day they were married 70 years ago in Lewes, surrounded by family members and close friends.

Bob and Marian Butchers are both in their 90s and met at a Home Guard dance when Marian was just 16 years old.

Their first date was on December 19, 1942, and they have been together ever since.

Bob, from Liphook, told The Herald: “We decided to get engaged straight away and when the war broke out and I joined the RAF, I wrote to her almost every day of my service.

“After I was demobbed in December 1946, we wanted to get married, which we did on 22 September 1948 with the blessings of both families. We had been together for six years - that’s what I call patience.”

The honeymoon was at the Berystede Hotel in Ascot, with the three-day September race meeting starting the following day.

After the war, Bob, who was born into a Lewes horse racing family, became a “newsboy”, a racing corespondent for the Daily Mirror, less than three weeks after leaving the airforce.

Of his wife he said: “I tipped plenty of winners when I was working for the newspaper, but Marian was, without a doubt, the best winner of all!”

As a young boy of 16, Bob’s mind was set on becoming a jockey and he succeeded riding at Plumpton and Cheltemham. By the time he received his call up for the RAF in early 1943, he had ridden two winners and admitted he “knew nothing about life outside of the racing world”.

His training took him to an airfield in Arizona, with stop-overs in New York, Canada and Chicago along the way, before returning to a holding camp on the Isle of Sheppey.

In January 1947, he joined the Daily Mirror, concentrating on his career as a journalist and turning his back on being a jockey.

He was one of very few young men who owned their own car back then – a Vauxhall Velox, which cost £400.

Bob and Marian, with daughter Lesley and son Guy, began a nomadic family life, after leaving Lewes in 1959 and moving to Epsom. In 1963 they moved to Hook, then Odiham and Petworth, returning to Odiham before settling in Suffolk for a few years.

They arrived in their Liphook retirment flat via Greatham five years ago.

During his career at the Mirror, Bob not only met numerous celebrities, race horse trainers and owners, but also members of the Royal family.

He recalled being invited to three of the Queen’s cocktail parties and was delighted, when a signed card arrived sending warm congratulations to the couple on their platinum wedding anniversary, signed by Her Majesty.

In 2008, Bob wrote his autobiography, Silks, Soaks and Certainties. Bob has now turned his hand to being a DJ, spinning discs at his retirement home’s monthly music event.