Readers Dennis and Daphne Cross have a double celebration coming up as Daphne turns 100 on Friday and they celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary in December.

The couple, who have two children, six grandchildren and seven great-granchildren, met on Reading Railway Station when Dennis was going back to the Army during the war and Daphne was going home on leave.

“I thought she was a lovely looking woman and I went over to talk to her,” said Dennis.

However, as he was stationed in Iraq it was a long courtship before they eventually married in Charlbury church in 1946.

They have lived in the same Charlbury home for 67 years having moved to the village, where Dennis was born, from Ward Caravan Park on Oxford’s Northern Bypass when they were offered a house at the end of the 1940s.

They plan to celebrate Daphne’s birthday with “a bit of a party” at home and are looking forward to her receiving a telegram from the Queen.

“Happiness is the secret of our long marriage,” said Dennis, 95, who describes himself as a “toyboy”.

“We have our ups and downs but we always come round.”