A COUPLE who have only spent two weeks apart during their entire marriage celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary yesterday.

Lawrence and Freda Milburn married on May 15, 1937, at All Saints' CE Church, in Skelton, east Cleveland.

Mrs Milburn, 95, met her future husband at Ulla Farm, in Middlesbrough, where he worked.

The pair lived there until 1939, when they moved to Hunters Hill Farm, in Guisborough. In 1966, they moved to Tylas Farm, near Helmsley, North Yorkshire, before they retired to Rievaulx in 1979, where they still live.

The couple had three children, Heather, Gillian and Barry, and have five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Mr Milburn, 93, said: "We have never been parted all our lives, except a fortnight when she went to Canada to see her brother.

"It is about give and take. We have had our ups and downs and a lot of hard breaks, but we have worked out very well.

"We get on very well together. She likes writing letters and I hate it, so we get on very well together. And she is good with figures, so she has kept me solvent.

"She means everything to me. I was a farmer and you get all sorts of upsets when you have animals, but when I went back into the house, I had my wife there and that was a very big thing. She had been a very big support."

The couple married in the same week as the Queen Mother's Coronation, and on reaching their diamond wedding anniversary, the pair received telegrams from the Queen Mother and the Queen.