DOUGLAS and Belinda Cole have good reason to celebrate this week.For they are celebrating their diamond wedding - 74 years after they first met.The Ipswich born couple, both 79, met at school in 1927.

DOUGLAS and Belinda Cole have good reason to celebrate this week.

For they are celebrating their diamond wedding - 74 years after they first met.

The Ipswich born couple, both 79, met at school in 1927.

Mr Cole said that they were both just five years old when they first set eyes on each other.

He said: "We were just good friends from school really and used to cycle to school together. We knew each other very well and got together as a couple when we were about 14 or 15."

In December 1941, he joined the RAF, which greatly influenced the couple's decision to get married.

Mr Cole said: "We never asked each other about getting married – certainly nobody proposed to anybody. We just thought that we were bound to get married sooner or later and with me being in the RAF we decided to make it sooner."

The couple, who now live in Dale Hall Lane, Ipswich, have lived in the Westerfield area for much of their lives and were married at Westerfield Parish Church, on February 6, 1942.

Mr Cole was based in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany during the remainder of the Second World War, while his wife worked in Croydon, where she was involved in the manufacture of gas masks.

Later the couple returned to Ipswich, with Douglas working at Ransomes, while Belinda worked at Co-op.

The couple have two children, Gloria, 54 and Martyn, 57 and three grandchildren.