GROVE couple Joyce and Pete Arnold celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary with a party for 40 family and friends.

The celebration was held at the Dog House pub in Frilford, near Abingdon, on Saturday.

The couple became pen friends in 1946 while Mr Arnold was serving in the Royal Navy on the cruiser HMS Belfast.

A shipmate had suggested he write to a friend of his wife.

But by the time the letter arrived, the friend had met someone else. She decided not to reply and passed the letter to Joyce, who then wrote to Pete.

The couple exchanged letters for a year before HMS Belfast returned to Portsmouth on October 15, 1947, when they met for the first time. They married on March 10, 1951, at St Aldate’s Church, Oxford.

The couple honeymooned for just four days before Mr Arnold went to sea again for two-and-a-half years.

Mrs Arnold, now 81, moved into their first home in Southsea. Their daughter Janet was born in 1956.

In 1958, when Mr Arnold left the Navy, they moved to Oxford.

Mr Arnold started working at Pressed Steel Fisher and Mrs Arnold was a Sunday school teacher at St Nicholas Church, Marston.

The family moved to Grove in 1964, and shortly after this Mrs Arnold started working for the Ministry of Defence, and later at AERE Harwell.

Mr Arnold, now 82, worked at Pressed Steel until his retirement.

When asked what was the secret of 60 years of happy marriage, Mr Arnold said: “Always working together and knowing when to say ‘yes dear’.”