IF Stanley Garrod had let his friend go back for a second dance with Gwendoline Stearn the couple's lives might have turned out very differently.

But the young soldier made sure he had the next dance and today they will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary.

The couple, who live in Iffley village, will follow their official anniversary up with a small party with family on Saturday.

Mr Garrod, a former chief environmental health officer at Oxford City Council, said there was no single secret to their long and happy marriage.

The 91-year-old said: "We have been very much in love with each other all these years and we hate being apart.

"It does not seem like we have been married for 70 years, time has flown by.

"We have had an interesting life and we have enjoyed it.

"I think we have been very fortunate."

Mr Garrod, who was born in East Anglia, met his wife in Leicester in the final years of the Second World War when he was serving in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.

He was sent to the city by the Army to study at a technical college there and would go dancing on Saturday nights with friends.

He said: "On this particular night one of them went to dance with Gwen and when he finished he said he had got on well.

"So I said 'right, I am having the next dance' and I walked her home that night and that was that."

The couple married on June 30, 1946 in Leicester and moved around the country as Mr Garrod took on different jobs in local government before settling in Oxford in 1962.

They lived in Belvedere Road, East Oxford until 1976 when they moved to Tree Lane in Iffley, where Mr Garrod still lives.

Mrs Garrod, also 91, has lived in Iffley Residential and Nursing Home in Anne Greenwood Close since April last year after developing Alzheimer's.

She spent her working life as a bank clerk and also pursued a passion for dressmaking, including her own wedding dress.

The couple have two children, Dane, 68, who lives in Abingdon, and 54-year-old Nicola who lives in London, as well as three grandsons - Alexander, Aidan and Adam.

Mr Garrod said: "We are not serious churchgoers but until Gwen's illness we went to church on a Sunday morning, we enjoyed doing that.

"We used to go on lots of cruise holidays as well until Gwen's illness and we liked them very much.

"We went to Iceland and Norway and Russia and the Mediterranean."

Mr Garrod has visited his wife every day for four hours since she moved to the care home and staff there are set to mark their anniversary today.

Mr Garrod said: "I believe they are having a cake made for us, but they have kept it very quiet."