PLENTY of love and laughter, being careful with your money, sticking by each other and sharing.

PLENTY of love and laughter, being careful with your money, sticking by each other and sharing.

According to Violet and Leslie Judd they are the keys to a happy marriage - and they should know after celebrating 70 years together.

The platinum couple married at a time when the world was facing uncertain times, with Britain on the brink of war.

Seven decades on, the world is again in crisis - albeit for different reasons - but the Felixstowe couple, both aged 92, are not fazed - they have seen it all before.

They met when they were 18 in Matching Tye, near Harlow, Essex, and married four years later, in 1939, at Epping Register Office.

“We were at church and Leslie was with a group of lads messing about, as lads do, and he threw a toffee paper which hit me on the nose, and it all started from there,” said Mrs Judd, who at the time was in service as a housemaid.

They courted for four years, saving �50 to get married and furnish a home, pledging never to be in debt or buy what they could not afford. The kindness of relatives provided several vital bits and pieces for their first home.

Mr Judd worked on a farm and when war came he was not called up because working on the land and food production were vital.

Mr Judd said: “Those were very frightening times. The Germans would attack farms and try to destroy the crops to disrupt life.

“One day I was working in a field, and you always had to have someone working with you in case of an attack, and they shouted to me and I ran over to the field edge and we hid under this big tree.

“The planes came and dropped 100 Molotov cocktails and set light to the field - fortunately it was just stubble and we had already got the harvest in.”

The couple moved from the edge of London to Trimley Lower Street in 1943 - although moving was restricted in war-time they were allowed to move from one danger zone to another.

After the war they lived in the Roundhouse at Walton for many years, and have lived in Mill Close, Felixstowe, for 19 years.

“Because we lived through the war, you stick together through thick and thin - we do argue but we finish it and it doesn't carry on. We share everything and we laugh a lot,” said Mrs Judd.

The couple have two sons, Victor, 69, and Richard, 65, nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

FASTFACTS: Other key events in 1939

Batman, created by Bob Kane, made his first appearance in a comic book.

Start of the Second World War - Germany invaded Poland and Britain declared war in September.

Premieres of classic films Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland, and Gone with the Wind with Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable.

End of the Spanish Civil War after the Republican forces surrendered.

Blue Peter presenter Peter Purves, rock and roll singer Phil Everly, actors John Cleese and Lee Majors, TV presenter David Frost, and fashion designer Ralph Lauren were all born.

No Nobel Prize for peace was awarded.