A chance meeting that led to a blind date 63 years ago was just the start for one Suffolk couple now celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary.

Mary and Tony Vincent, from Henley, were 17 and 18 when they met in 1959, brought together when their friends arranged a date.

Mary, who is originally from Plymouth, was on a day outing to Dartmoor when her friend began talking to a Royal Marine.

Her friend said she would go on a date and arranged that he would bring a friend for Mary.

That friend, was Tony.

The date saw the four meet up at Plymouth Bus Station and take another bus to Jennycliff.

Tony, who was training at Bickleigh with 42 Commando, said: “It was a chance meeting. Had we not been on exercise on Dartmoor, that would never have happened.

“We had a lovely day. On the bus back to barracks, I said to Pete ‘you have introduced me to my wife’ and the rest they say is history.”

The couple would wait three years to marry while Tony served with the Royal Marines in Singapore aboard HMS Bulwark.

Mary said: “We wrote every day he was away. We would number the envelopes.”

Tony added: “So when the ship came into harbour, I knew which one to read first.”

They married on August 18, 1962, at St Judes Church in Plymouth, and have marked their diamond wedding anniversary with family.

The couple said for them "give and take" was an important part of their relationship.

They returned to Suffolk in 1968 and are parents to three children Sonia, Shaun and Scott.