A former Mayor of Richmond upon Thames and his wife put 65 years of marriage down to being happy with what they have got when they celebrated their anniversary this week.

Tom and Doris Bligh, of Tennyson Avenue in Twickenham, were married on January 3, 1942 and on Wednesday they reached their 65th anniversary.

The pair met in the early 1940s when Doris, now 91, was asked to take a Sunday School at St Edmund's Church in Whitton and one of the youngsters who attended was Tom's sister Mary.

Doris used to walk home from the church with Tom's family and love soon blossomed, the pair married at St Edmund's, in what is now the church hall, when Tom was 21.

They had four children Jacqueline, Christopher, Rosemary and Stephen, but the couple suffered the loss of their first-born in 2003 when Jacqueline, who became a nun and worked in Egypt, died of cancer.

They have seven grandchildren, but are still awaiting their first great grandchild.

The couple said: "You have to make the best of what you have and not spend time hoping for things that might never happen."