Pagham couple's wartime marriage lasts seven decades

Doug and Marjorie Tindall reached the platinum anniversary of their wedding. Yet they almost didn’t even make it out of Rotherham’s parish church where their marriage ceremony took place 70 years ago.

An air raid was taking place at the time after their previous night had also been spent underground in an Anderson shelter away from the bombs of a previous raid.

Mrs Tindall, 89, said: “It was a nice day but we were more worried about the air raid than the weather.

“It seems like yesterday really. Everywhere you go, there are so few husbands and wives today.

“People say that we are lucky we have got each other - and we are.”

The couple will mark their latest milestone with a get-together for their family in a local pub this Saturday. There will be 31 people there, including their four children, six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Also present will be the niece and nephew of Mr Tindall, 92, who were a bridesmaid and page boy on the big day in 1942.

“We wanted to get the family and members of the wedding at the celebration,” he said.

It was the second world war which brought the couple together. Mrs Tindall was sent to work in the hospital in her future husband’s home town of Grantham.

She and her fellow nurses and some patients were bombed out of their hospital in Rotherham.