SIXTY-TWO years after their eyes met over a crate of oranges at Oxford’s old marmalade factory, a couple are celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary.

Enid and John Stubbles of Rose Hill will toast 60 years of marriage today with their children.

The pair met in 1951 when they were both working at Frank Cooper’s marmalade factory.

Mrs Stubbles, 81, said: “I did a bit of everything – peeling oranges, filling the jars – and he was in the packing room.

“We met and he took me out to the pictures.”

Two years later, on June 6, 1953, they were married at All Saint’s Church in Spelsbury, where Mrs Stubbles was born and raised.

The couple first lived with Mr Stubbles’ parents in Barton, later moving to Osney Island and then Bicester before settling in Rose Hill.

When their son Keith was born in 1954 Mrs Stubbles stopped working to become a full-time mum. Their daughter Susan was born three years later.

Mr Stubbles, who was born in London in 1930, had moved to Oxford with his parents.

He worked at Frank Cooper’s for 17 years until it closed, and was promoted from the dispatch department to the role of supervisor.

He said: “There were always oranges and strawberries for making jam when they were in season. We didn’t get free marmalade but we got discount staff prices.”

When the Oxford factory closed in 1967 and production switched to Scotland, Mr Stubbles worked there for eight weeks, helping to establish the new enterprise.

Back home, he found a job as a postman in North Oxford, which he did for two years.

Then he worked at Boffin’s Bakery off Botley Road for 15 years before retiring.

Mrs Stubbles said the secret to a long and happy marriage had been “working together”.

She added: “I have to do more or less everything for him, but that is how it was in those days.”

Mr Stubbles, 82, agreed that the secret was ‘give and take’.

“Just take everything as it comes,” he said, “and don’t worry about anything.”

Nowadays, the couple enjoy spending evenings in together, doing crossword puzzles and watching soap operas.

Their son Keith, 58, lives in Charlbury, and their daughter Susan Peach, 55, in North Way. They have four grandchildren – Karen, 32, Adrian, 31, Laura, 29, and Alison, 26, – and two great-grandchildren, eight-year-old Ella and Ruby, seven, who go to Witney Primary School.