TEDDY and Ethel Piper received their second wedding anniversary card from the Queen yesterday.

The first greeting from Buckingham Palace dropped through the letter box of their home ten years ago, when the couple celebrated their diamond wedding.

A decade on and Teddy, 93, and Ethel, 94, are marking their platinum anniversary, after 70 years of marriage.

When the day of their milestone dawned, Mrs Piper spent the morning icing a new batch of her home-baked cakes while Mr Piper, in his pinstripe suit, welcomed the stream of well-wishers calling at their home, in Wingate.

In the late 1920s, Mr Piper, from Featherstone, near Pontefract, West Yorkshire, call on his cousin in Wingate.

During his stay, he attended the village's motor club, where he met a young woman with a BSA motorbike.

That girl was Ethel and romance quickly blossomed. In 1932, the couple married at Wingate Methodist Church.

They set up home in the east Durham village and their family was completed by the arrival of sons Derek and Brian.

Mr Piper, a mechanic, worked as a driver before securing a top post at Easington Council's engineering workshops.

Because of his technical skills, he was called up during the Second World War and took part in the D-Day landings.

On his return, he resumed his job at Easington, where he worked until he was 65.

In his retirement, Mr Piper has kept active either by busying himself in his workshop or taking his wife on two foreign holidays a year.

Expert cook Mrs Piper has served for 25 years as secretary of Wingate WI.

Family members, including their sons, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, will gather at Hardwick Hall, near Blackhall, today for a platinum party.