The first time they met was like a scene from the television drama Upstairs, Downstairs.

Now, Tom and Brenda Holding, of Bartletts Close, Halfway, are looking back on 65 years of happy marriage.

The two met in 1946 at a Royal Air Force base in Bentley Priory, Hertfordshire, where they both worked.

Mr Holding, 85, who is originally from Wembley, said: “We were in the officers’ mess. I was a cook downstairs and Brenda was a silver service waitress upstairs, so it was very much like Upstairs, Downstairs.

“I was dishing up the food; Brenda was coming along to collect it. We were eye to eye, and it didn’t take long before we were stepping out together.”

They were engaged a year later, after Brenda was demobbed. A week after their wedding day in 1948, Tom left the armed forces too and they started their lives together.

The couple, who married at the dockyard church in Sheerness, have a son, Robert, 62, grandchildren Grant, 34, and Stacey, 32, and great-grandchildren Jordan, 12, and Bradley, 10.

When asked how to have a long and happy marriage, Mr Holding replied: “There is no secret. It is actually there for everybody to enjoy. It’s a question of laughter.

“I suppose, really, you might call us fun people and we do enjoy a laugh.

“There are not many mornings when we wake up without finding something to laugh about, and during the day we’ll find our own private jokes. I think it maintains good health too.”

Staff hosted a party for them last Tuesday at Age Concern, Trinity Road, Sheerness, which the couple both regularly visit.

To mark the occasion of the couple’s blue sapphire anniversary, Mr Holding presented
his wife with a ring of that gemstone.

Mrs Holding joked: “I wasn’t very happy because I didn’t think it warranted a ring, but he wanted to do it so that was it. I accepted.”

The 84-year-old added: “We just take each other as we are, look after each other and go out when we can.”