Former Desert Rat Geoffrey Taylor and his wife Violet are celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary this week.

The Taylors, from Abberd Way, Calne, are one of the few couples to reach the platinum milestone and they will mark it with a party for family and friends at the Woodlands Club on Saturday.

Mr Taylor, 92, said: “It is very nice really, we still get along well. We go by the motto of give and take – she gives and I take.”

The couple met outside a jewellers in Calne High Street in 1936, when Mrs Taylor (nee Nash) was choosing a birthday present for her mother.

They got married in Calne Parish Church on June 24, 1939, when Mrs Taylor carried white roses as her father Herbert escorted her down the aisle.

“It was a small wedding,” said Mrs Taylor, 89. “Just a family affair. Everyone was talking about the war so we got married. We could not afford a honeymoon so we just went to my mum’s house in The Pippin after the party.”

After just six months Mr Taylor was called away to war, and the newlyweds found themselves apart with Mrs Taylor expecting their first child.

They were reunited for a few short weeks when Mr Taylor had completed his Army training in Kent, and they soon discovered they would be having another baby.

Mr Taylor said: “I saw our children briefly when they were a few months old but they were both older than five when I came back to Calne. I missed them growing up.”

The couple had very little contact during the war, and Mrs Taylor did not know where in the world her husband was as she brought up their children David and Christine. “I sent him letters and told him about the children,” she said. “And he sent cards back but they were very heavily censored so I never knew where he was.”

In fact he was seeing some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

He was with the famous 8th Army based in North Africa whose soldiers earned the nickname Desert Rats for their bravery and tenacity, particularly at the battle of El Alamein, in which Mr Taylor saw action. Other postings included to Burma, Bagdad and Bombay.

He returned to the UK in 1946 with the rank of acting sergeant.

“I travelled all over the world,” he said. “And I have seen some sights. I wanted to go to war to do my duty but I was happy to come home to Violet.”

After the war, the couple worked at St Mary’s School in Calne. Mr Taylor was the caretaker, while Mrs Taylor worked in the kitchen, and they brought up their children in a bungalow in the grounds.

They have four grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.