A couple who caught each other’s eye walking through Epsom are celebrating 60 years of marriage.

Keith and June Colman, of Chessington Road, West Ewell, are due to celebrate their diamond wedding anniversary on Thursday, July 26.

The 81-year-old great-grandparents, who are parents to Keith Colman Jnr, 58, and Sally-May Hulbert, 50, met aged 17. 

Keith said he then entered the army for two years, but continued to see June, and the pair got engaged in 1951.

He said: "June’s best friend was going to work away from home, so they went out for tea and toast in Epsom before she left.

"Me and a friend of mine were walking down Upper High Street and they were coming down the road and I just said ‘those girls are nice’.

"There was something about my wife that I just liked - she was very smart at the time and was a bit special. 

"She wasn’t attracted to me for my money - we had nothing at that age, but I think she liked my curly hair."

June said: "When I left school my mother put me into waitressing and I started working in a high-class restaurant which used to be right next to Epsom clocktower called Fullers. 

"Keith was passing Fullers one day when I was doing the window dressing and winked at me - that was before we had even met."

The couple said they have always gotten on well and believe that compromising is important.

June said: "We have had our moments of being argumentative, but on the whole we love each other very, very much and we’re always telling the other that we love them.  We are very close."

Keith added: "The secrets of being happy and having a long marriage is that we give and take and don’t make demands of one another. 

"I think there’s far too much divorce these days and it’s too easy to divorce - people don’t work at their marriages as much as they should."