Young Don Phillips was playing table tennis at his work’s social club when he met colleague Gloria.

That meeting at the former CAV diesel pumps on Rochester Esplanade led to a lifetime of love for the couple who recently celebrated their diamond wedding.

The pair married at Rochester Baptist Church, Crow Lane, in 1956 and set up home in Langdon Road, Rochester, where they lived for 10 years.

Mr and Mrs Phillips then moved to their present home in Carlton Crescent, Luton, where they brought up their three children, Helen, Keith and Claire.

Mrs Phillips, 78, gave up work after her first child was born to become a full-time mum but as the children got older, she became a clerk in the pharmacy at the former All Saints Hospital in Chatham where she worked for 20 years.

Community stalwart Mr Phillips, who is now 83, is well known as leader of the Friends of Luton Memorial Garden group, where volunteers have worked hard to make sure people from Luton who died during the Second World War are remembered.

Mr and Mrs Phillips also have four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren with another two on the way.

They celebrated their landmark anniversary with afternoon tea followed by a party for family and friends at Upchurch River Valley Golf Course.

Asked about the key to staying happily married for 60 years, Mr Phillips, a romantic at heart according to his wife, said: “I just don’t believe people who say they’ve been married all that time and never had a row.

It’s about live and let live, that’s they key to staying married, that and the fact it was bred into me that once you’re married, you’re married for life.”

Mrs Phillips added: “It’s not natural if you don’t have your differences now and again, but I can honestly say he’s never let me down.”