Young love is all couple ever needed

Their eyes met during VE Day celebrations and 60 years later they couldn’t be happier.

Jean and Jim Spurr met when they were still at school, but six decades later they have shown that young love was ultimately true love.

Last week the couple, of Edinburgh Drive, North Anston celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary and fondly remembered how they first met.

Jean, now 80, had been evacuated to South Yorkshire from her home in Kent and was enjoying the celebrations with her father, who was home on leave.

She said: “I’d moved up with my family. I was evacuated with my mum and when he (my dad) came out (of the army) she didn’t want to move back.”

“Jim saw me and thought she is nice.”

Jim, 81, added: “I’d she her around before. If it wasn’t for Hitler then we wouldn’t have met.”

“I asked to walk her home and she agreed and it continued forever.”

“Jean got pneumonia and I plucked up the courage to go round to her house to give her some flowers.”

Now 60 years on the pair couldn’t be happier and celebrated their anniversary on 2nd August.

Jim said: “Jean’s father said she couldn’t get married until she was 21, but we beat him by nine days. Jean’s birthday is 11th August.”

When they married at St Leonard’s Church, Jim was home from the Navy and just made it to his wedding.

He caught the last bus from Sheffield after his captain got his boat home in time after it got stuck in a gale.

“Our whole marriage has been luck,” said Jean.

“I can remember there been crowds of people and when we went into the church there was an almighty thunderstorm. It stopped when we came out.”

The couple moved to Malta for two-and-a-half years where Jim was stationed before moving to London.

They decided to move to Dinnington because houses were cheaper in the north and never looked back.

Jim worked as a postman for 25 years and Jean was a dinner lady at Anston Greenlands Junior and Infant School.

Jean said: “It doesn’t seem 60 years. It has flown by. We’ve had such an exciting life.”

The couple fostered and later adopted a daughter called Catherine, when she was three, before having their son, David. Sadly Catherine died from Hodgkin’s disease when she was 22.

The couple also have two grandchildren, Jordan, 16, and Connor, 13. Jean said: “We’ve had a good life. We are still alive and together. I think it’s because we have been so active.”

“We still go out together every morning for a coffee somewhere.”

And the secret to a long and happy marriage according to Jean is simply, ‘being happy and content.’

“We’ve had our ups and downs like everybody does, but you just have to learn not to dwell on the unhappy times,” she added.

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