AN Oxfordshire couple celebrating 70 years of wedded bliss have given their secret to a long and happy marriage; a good row every so often.

Yvonne and Bruce Balfour don’t worry about the odd argument, as clearing the air every now and then has stood the lovebirds in good stead since they met in 1943.

The pair were joined by family members for a small party at their home in Freeland, near Witney, on Wednesday to mark their platinum anniversary.

Mrs Balfour, 90, said: “We don’t have any advice for anyone when it comes to relationships, we’ve just got on with it.

“I couldn’t tell how, we’ve just taken each day as it comes.”

Grand-daughter Emma Admans, 21, of Witney, said: “They do love a good bicker.

“And she wears the trousers.

“I think it clears the air and keeps them young. We are so incredibly proud of them and overjoyed that they have stayed together and been able to stay happy and spend so much time together for so long. Relationships don’t last as long these days, they are a special case.”

A chance meeting in a field near Port Meadow in Oxford during wartime led to their engagement.

Mr Balfour, now 93, was an army engineer working on tanks with the 1st Canadian Division.

Mrs Balfour said: “It was a lovely summer’s day, and I’d gone to have jabs at the doctors but the needle had broken in my arm so I was off work.

“I was walking through a field when I saw him in his uniform, then I saw him again not long after when I was about to get on the bus with my mother.

“It was like we couldn’t get away from each other.”

The pair married at St John the Evangelist church in New Hinksey on June 5, 1943.

Mrs Balfour said: “I can tell you, I was sober. I’d borrowed a dress. It was quite a quick, quiet wedding.

“Bruce had been posted to Italy and we wanted to get married before he was shipped off. It was a lovely day.”

Mr Balfour served his country and returned from the war profoundly deaf following a series of heavy artillery shellings during the Allied invasion of Italy. His family said he lost several friends, and was lucky to return alive.

Being “bike crazy” Mr Balfour began working as a motorbike mechanic after the war, and the pair forged a life for themselves in Oxford.

They had three children, Victor, Yvette and Maria, and went on to have eight grandchildren and a great-grandchild. After almost half a century in Oxford, the pair moved to Freeland and now live close to other family members.