Two wartime teenage sweethearts will be celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary next week.

Ron Lethbridge, 90, and Pauline Lethbridge, 91, from New Malden, will be joined by friends and family, including their two page boys, at Priory Court care home in Ewell to celebrate their long and happy marriage on December 5.

Daughter Wendi Lethbridge said: "My mother's very much looking forward to the party."

They first met when they were 17 year olds. Both keen Chelsea supporters, their enthusiasm for sport brought them together.

Miss Lethbridge said: "My father played football at the time and she used to always go and watch him play.

"They used to go skating together. They were both very sporty and both played tennis. Later on they were on the New Malden tennis club committee and part of the golf club too."

When they married in Fulham in 1942, Ron was still under 21 and had to wait for a telegram from his father in Canada who had to give permission for him to marry.

As a soldier, and a lance bombardier by the age of 24, Ron was a gunner in France and was sent out to India after the war.

Miss Lethbridge said: "My mother remembers the first Christmas they had together. She tried to cook Christmas dinner but burnt it all.

"I discovered a big box of old letters and cards that they wrote to each other before they got married.

"She wrote one about this open air swimming pool when the bombers were flying overhead - they wrote to each other every day that week - and she said how she went up the diving board to see them on day.

"My dad got angry, and said 'how dare you do that, it's dangerous.'"

Though Ron receives treatment in a separate area of the care home, Pauline visits him regularly. Miss Lethbridge said: "The manager at the home told me: ‘I think it's so romantic the way they sit there and hold hands.’"