CHILDHOOD sweethearts celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary yesterday said their good marriage was all down to luck.

Raymond Mead, 89 and his wife Maisie, 88, from Old Headington, first met when they were teenagers.

The couple lived next-door-but-one to each other in Upland Park Road, Summertown, and courted over a game of golf.

Mrs Mead, nee Oak, said: “We were about 15 or 16 when we met, so I guess you could call us childhood sweethearts.

“We went to different schools but would play golf together. I would beat him at golf and then he’d beat me at tennis.”

Mrs Mead was the eldest daughter of inventor Albert Victor Oak, director at the Morris Motors factory in Cowley.

He employed Sir Alec Issigonis, later credited with the development of the Mini.

Mrs Mead said the Mini Moke vehicle, a car produced in the 1960s was named after her – M. Oak.

She said: “I asked him to marry me, but I was only 15 at the time, so he turned me down.”

The couple officially started to date in 1939, but then the Second World War “got in the way”.

Mr Mead said: “I joined the RAF and was one of the Pensecola Boys, as I trained in Pensecola in America.

“I flew Sunderland planes in the war, which were known as the flying boats.”

Mr Mead served in the Caribbean and then went to Japan, returning home after the war.

He then took a degree in dentistry at Birmingham University, while Mrs Mead passed her civil servant exams.

The couple were married in St Peter’s Church in Wolvercote on April 21, 1951 and settled in Old Headington, where they ran a dental practice, living in the same Dunston Road house for 55 years.

Mrs Mead said: “We got to know so many people here. I ran the practice for him, as well as being the assistant, cleaner and cook.”

She joked: “I helped cook the books too.”

The couple had two children, Matthew and Jennie, and five grandchildren, Charlotte, Jamie, Abbie, Alice and Rafferty.

Mr Mead said they had spent a happy life together, making sure they didn’t argue more than once a day.

And when asked what the secret to a long and happy marriage was, Mrs Mead said it was “luck”.

Mr Mead added: “Luck is definitely half of it. The other half is ignoring those things that you ought to ignore.”