ONE of Britain’s longest married couples have celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary.

Lower Bourne duo Jack and Helen Frost’s love story began in the late 1930s when they were both just 19 years old.

Jack, who was originally from Mitcham, said they met while he was visiting his older brother in South Harrow.

His brother told him to “go to the dairy to buy a pint of milk from ‘old blue eyes’”, and that’s when he first met Helen.

Helen began working in the dairy shop when she left school aged 17 to look after her father and two brothers following her mother’s death from pneumonia.

After leaving school, Jack worked for a firm of paper manufacturers and exporters until he joined the RAF and went to war as a navigator on a Bristol Beaufighter. Helen followed in Jack’s footsteps and was one of the first women to join the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force.

Recalling the day he proposed, Jack remembers how, having first got permission from Helen’s father, he went down on bended knee to ask Helen to marry him.

Although Helen said yes, it was two years before the couple were able to tie the knot as Jack was abroad for long stretches of time.

However, when Jack was granted some rare home leave, Helen was also given three days leave so she and Jack could marry at a church in Jack’s home town on May 21.

Helen said: “After a long engagement, our wedding ended up happening really quickly.

“We had just three days and had to get a special licence from the Bishop of London to allow us to get married on a Sunday.

“We married in uniform, so I didn’t have a bouquet although my Auntie Edie did give me a bunch of flowers and I was issued with some new shoes, which my uncle commented on because the soles were so shiny!”

While most of Jack’s family attended the wedding, Helen’s brother was in the forces and was unable to make it.

Jack’s sister provided guests with a meal which Jack said must have been quite a challenge with just wartime rations.

After she was demobbed, Helen went house hunting for the couple’s first married home. Jack was still in Singapore so Helen had to send all the paperwork overseas for him to sign before she could secure and move into their new home in Mitcham.

After leaving the RAF, Jack went back to his pre-war employer which involved him travelling to paper manufacturing countries across the world. They moved to Farnham in 1973 when Jack’s firm relocated to Basingstoke.

At the age of 97 and 98, Jack and Helen continue to enjoy their independence thanks to a little helping hand from the caregivers at Right at Home.

Caregiver Adriana said they are a “remarkable and loving couple” and it is “clear to see how fond they are of each other”. She wished them “many congratulations” on behalf of Right at Home.

Jack and Helen have two sons who live in South Wales and Dartmoor, six grandchildren and one great grandson who lives with his parents in Cape Town.

Helen said the secret to a long and happy marriage is to “avoid quarrels”, adding: “If you do get in one, forget it as soon as possible – let it drop and start again.”

The couple spent their anniversary with family, enjoying each other’s company.