Being friends first and occasionally turning your hearing aid off might be a strange way to ensure a long union, but it must work if Madge and Peter Flewin are anything to go by.

The besotted couple from Horton Kirby, near Dartford, are celebrating their platinum wedding anniversary not far from where they first met.

Madge and Peter tell how they met

Growing up, they lived only two doors apart in School Lane – at numbers 62 and 64 – and now have a bungalow in Churchill Road, just round the corner from their childhood homes.

Madge and Peter were friends with each other's siblings first but eventually became close.

Madge, 90, said: "We had a youth club down the hill and he would come down to my house and would whistle for me to go out.

"Then one night he knocked on my door and my dad told him to come in, and that was that. Now I joke it was my dad's fault we are together."

Husband Peter, 92, joked: "It was all downhill after that."

When they first started dating, Madge was 15 and Peter 18. He was then called up for National Service and served two years in the Welsh Guard.

The pair got married in 1952 and originally moved out to Chalk, near Gravesend, before returning to Horton Kirby in 1969.

They have three children – Glynis, Vanessa and Andrew – seven grandsons, one grand-daughter and four great-grandchildren.

When asked the secret to a long and happy marriage, they both agreed that being friends first was the most important thing.

Peter joked: "And sometimes, turn your hearing aid off."

Madge added: "I read somewhere that Capricorns, according to the stars, are good together if they get married and we are.

"We have never had a shouting match. I just could not live without him."

The Flewins are celebrating 70 years of marriage today (Tuesday).

In 1952, the Queen came to the throne in February, Ann Davison, 39, made history by becoming the first woman to single-handedly sail across the Atlantic with her journey across the ocean beginning on November 20, Singin' in the Rain made its box office debut and The Great Smog of 1952 hit London in December.