WHEN Margaret Townsend got a telegram saying her husband Ernest was ‘missing, presumed dead’, she thought she’d never see him again.

But he did return and at the weekend, the couple celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary, surrounded by family and friends.

Mr Townsend, 91, fought in Africa during the Second World War and was seriously wounded by shrapnel.

It left him deaf in one ear and a continent away from his family, in a hospital in Johannesburg.

Daughter Diane Lamboll, 60, said: “He was in the army, fighting in South Africa and was very badly wounded.

“He was picked up and taken to Johannesburg, but all my mum knew was that he was ‘missing, presumed dead’. Mum thought she was a widow after only a few years of marriage with a newborn son.

“Then she got the telegram that he was alive and he came home on the Queen Mary.”

Mr Townsend rushed home to Botley, where the couple lived for 66 years, and burst into the house.

Mrs Lamboll said: “My brother, who was 18 months old at the time, was asleep and was woken up by my father bursting into the house.

“He’d never met him before, so all he knew was that a strange man had run into the house. Apparently he didn’t speak to him for years.”

The couple met when they were working at the Witney Glove Factory, when Mrs Townsend, nee Ayriss, was 16.

Mr Townsend joined the army at the outbreak of war and was a lance corporal when they were married at St Lawrence’s Church in North Hinksey just a few days before he left for war in 1941.

After the war, the couple lived in Botley for most of their lives before moving into Cedar Court care home in Witney last year.

Mrs Townsend, now 90, worked in an accounts office and Mr Townsend was a leather cutter at the Cowley car works until he reached pension age.

But he went on to work as a wine waiter at Christ Church, Oxford, and only gave up the job when he was 80.

Mrs Lamboll said: “He loved working there, I think he enjoyed being active and getting to meet people.”

They have two children, Barry, 68, and Diane, three grandchildren Claire, Christopher and Jonathan, and two great-grandchildren.

Mrs Lamboll said: “We threw them a little party with about 25 friends and family members, as it’s an incredible milestone.

“They have had a very, very happy marriage and are both still very much in love.”

Mrs Townsend said: “It’s difficult to say what the secret to a long and happy marriage is really, it’s just trust and love.

“Seventy years is such a long time – a lifetime really.”