Valentine couple ‘in love for 75 years’
A COUPLE who married just weeks before they were torn apart by war have celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary on Valentine’s Day.
Dennis Quinton, 94, and his wife Alice, 95, tied the knot on February 14, 1942, just six weeks before Dennis was sent away to fight in the Second World War.
Dennis, who was in the RAF, had returned home on leave to marry his childhood sweetheart and it was purely by chance it coincided with Valentine’s Day.
The couple wed at Carlton Baptist Church in Nottingham – the place where they first set eyes on each other at Sunday school aged just 17 and 18 back in 1939.
Dennis said: “It was love at first sight. If you marry for love you stay in love – we’re still very much in love with each other.” Although the newlyweds spent the first two years of marriage apart they regularly wrote to each other until Dennis finally came home from Canada.
He said: “It was terrible to be so far away from Alice.
“She must have worried about me a lot. It was so wonderful when we could finally be reunited.
“Some men I knew in the RAF received letters from their wives saying they were sorry but they’d found somebody new, which must have been devastating.
“I was never worried about receiving a letter like that – I knew I had a faithful wife.”
After the war Dennis became a social worker and has worked for Barnado’s and The Children’s Society. The couple have also been “house parents” for young people at a children’s home.
Dennis said raising a family had been the best part of their 75 years together. They had twin boys and a daughter who died 12 years ago.
He said: “I think we had more stability back then. It seems like there are more possibilities for people to break up these days.”
The couple live together at the Anchor Court retirement home in Bestwood Park, Nottingham, where yesterday they celebrated their anniversary with a tea party.
Alice, who calls Dennis her “toy boy”, said: “The key to a longlasting marriage is loving each other and then forgiving each other when things don’t go to plan.”
Their son, Dave, 68, said the time his parents spent apart “seemed to just make them stronger”.