13291/1GREAT grandparents Arthur and Freda Paul of Minety, who celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary on Saturday, have been stuck on each other from the start.

Mr Paul, who celebrated his 81st birthday the following day, had an infected thumb when he met his wife-to-be in hospital.

He said: "Our 60 years together all started with a postage stamp. On January 1, 1944, I was a soldier taken to the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital, Herne Bay, Kent.

"I needed a stamp to post letters. I asked a nurse to get some when she went off duty.

"When she got back, I was fast asleep, so she stuck them on my nose.

From that moment I knew she was the girl for me and I declared I'd marry her before my 21st birthday, June 6 1944."

The couple married on the June 3, 1944, but just days later on June 8, he was sent to France to join the Normandy invasion and needed to have a kidney removed after being severely wounded at Falaise and brought home to England.

But he recovered and was demobbed in 1947 when he and his wife moved to London, where Mr Paul returned to work in the timber industry.

Mrs Paul, 77, of Oakleaze, said: "It has been wonderful. We have had our ups and downs like every marriage.

"But it has really been a marvellous marriage looking back on it and we have a lovely family."

The couple's two daughters, son, seven grandchildren and great grandson were at a party at the Bell Inn in Lacock to celebrate the couple's 60 years together.