Pen pals Harry and Josie Bridges wrote to one another for more than three years during the Second World War - without ever meeting.

Today, more than six decades after first putting pen the paper, the couple, of Cromwell Close, in Marston, Oxford, celebrate 60 years of marriage.

The correspondence began in 1942, when Mr Bridges, stationed at Bovington army barracks, in Dorset, was invited by a relative of his wife-to-be, also at Bovington, to become her pen pal, before he was sent abroad.

In no time at all, the then Josie Haynes replied. It was just the first of "too many letters to count", she said.

Mrs Bridges, 83, a great-grandmother, added: "I told him about going to the pictures and about family things and he told me about where he was stationed, although he wasn't allowed to write about specific places.

"We were pen friends for three-and-a-half years and then he came home for a month's leave in 1945.

"We met up and the following weekend he asked to see me again.

"He always said he would come to see me when he got back to England, but I never imagined when we were writing to one another we would end up married.

"I have kept all the letters he sent. I still read them sometimes - it's nice to bring back memories."

Mr Bridges, 87, and president of Marston Royal British Legion, served in India, the Middle East, Italy and Germany between 1941 and 1948, the year the couple married at St Nicholas Church, in Marston, on August 21.

Mrs Bridges said: "It was a long courtship and we didn't see much of one another, but I was pretty sure I had the right man."

Her husband, originally from Wiltshire, added: "Josie's letters were a great comfort. I didn't get many letters from home."

Mr and Mrs Bridges, who have lived in Marston all their married life, have three children - Geoffrey, 58, Mary, 57, and Susan, 43, - seven grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren, all of whom live nearby.

Mrs Bridges said it felt "wonderful" to celebrate their diamond anniversary.

Her husband added: "It's just the job. I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

And the secret to a long marriage?

Mr Bridges said: "No secrets and working together - you have got to let your wife know what you are going to do and vice versa."

Mr and Mrs Bridges plan to celebrate with family at home on Saturday.