AN elderly York couple have celebrated reaching two significant milestones in the space of two days.

Bette and Peter Dickens marked their 70th wedding anniversary yesterday, only 24 hours after Peter’s 90th birthday.

The couple, from Eastholme Drive, Rawcliffe, got married on December 4, 1943, at Holy Trinity Church in Heworth.

Bette, 89, said they had two children, Colin and Lynda, and now have eight grandchildren, 19 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild, who was born only 11 weeks ago.

She said her husband worked on the railways for 46 years, becoming a footplateman on great locomotives such as the Mallard. She worked during the war as a telephonist and receptionist at the Terry’s chocolate factory, where propellors for war planes were being made, and later got a job as a civil servant, working at Imphal Barracks.

Bette said their recipe for a long marriage was “give and take” and Peter was a “gentleman”, who was adored by everyone in the family. She added that Lynda had organised a big family celebration, attended by 70 guests, inside Wigginton Church last weekend.