AN ANDOVER couple, who met and married in Malta five months after they first met, is celebrating 60 years of marriage this week.

Peggy and John Vickery were married at St Paul’s Cathedral on Thursday, July 6 1957.

Mr Vickery was serving in the Royal Navy in Malta at the time as was Mrs Vickery’s father.

Mrs Vickery was visiting her father in hospital when she started talking to her would-be husband, who was in the next bed along.

They started seeing each other and four to five months later the pair were married - the second only couple in the church’s book.

Mr Vickery was about to be sent back to the UK, but the couple stayed another year in Malta before he left the navy and they returned to Britain.

During their marriage, the Valencia Way pair also emigrated to Australia to live in Adelaide and Tasmania, for four-and-half-years as part of the Ten Pound Pom scheme.

Mr and Mrs Vickery returned to the same church they were married in to renew their wedding vows on the exact date of their 40th wedding anniversary.

On their long marriage, Mr Vickery said: “We do everything together as much as possible.

“We’re still lovey-dovey and we kiss and cuddle everyday, and we still go for walks. “Marriage is what you make of it.

“We’ve had our tiffs and we kiss and make up, it’s never anything serious, we’ve never fell out.”

Mrs Vickery added: “We just get along, lots of people don’t bother to try, we just get along.”

The great-grandparentsof-19 will be marking their landmark occasion with a dinner with their children and a cruise around the British Isles.