A COLCHESTER couple celebrated a platinum wedding anniversary last week after reaching the astonishing milestone of being married for 70 years – and counting.

Brian and Cynthia Pierpoint, who are both 91 and live on Mersea Road, met in 1945 at the age of 15.

They married six years later in 1951, when Clement Attlee was Prime Minister and King George VI was still on the throne.

Asked what the secret was to a long and successful marriage was, Brian quipped: “Always agree with your wife!”

The couple’s big day was not the traditional wedding full of guests and well-wishers.

Instead, it was a very low-key ceremony which took place without even the bride and groom’s families, who didn’t attend because they thought the marriage wouldn’t last.

“We were both staying with two friends of ours,” Brian recalls.

“On our wedding day at Downend Church in Bristol, I climbed out of the front window before making my way to the church so I wouldn’t see my bride.

Gazette: 1 – Pierpoint Family barbeque

“The vicar got there and made a very quick ceremony – then we waited for the photographer and he didn’t turn up.

“So our two friends who were with us took a photo with one those box cameras.”

The newly-weds walked back to their friends’ house to cut the wedding cake.

Their first meal as a married couple was fish and chips – but they forgot to pick up the salt and vinegar.

Gazette: 4 – Pierpoint Family, 1962

Brian said: “After that, we headed to Bristol Hippodrome to watch a film starring Gypsy Rose Lee.”

The couple returned to Colchester in 1959 where they raised their two children, June Pierpoint-Paz, 63, and Anne Pierpoint, 64.

They are grandparents to Paul Gloc, 44, and Nicola Pierpoint, 42, and great-grandparents to Jessica and Charlotte, both five; Louis, six; and Max, aged one.