HE HELPED her cross the road when she was 18-years-old – and now a devoted couple are celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary.

Stewart Watt worked as a beat bobby in London and saw his wife-to-be Marge every morning on her way home from her job as a clerical worker as she crossed the road.

She said: “In those days, we didn’t have such things as lollipop ladies. Policemen used to do that duty. I left my work at the same time as the children left school for lunch, and I used to tag along the back of them to go across the road.”

One day, Marge pointed out Stewart to her friend, saying: “That policeman takes me across the road – isn’t he lovely?”. She added: “I had a thing about teeth and I kept saying ‘that policeman has lovely teeth’.”

Without her knowledge, her friend invited Stewart around for a meal on a day when Marge was there, and the pair got chatting.

Stewart was called up to the army emergency reserve, and whilst away, he wrote to Marge asking if she would like to meet him. The couple married a year later in 1954 in London.

Marge, now 79, recalled borrowing items from her sister, who had tied the knot just 11 weeks earlier.

The couple married in a church on a bright, sunny day, before everyone was invited back to Marge’s mother’s home for sandwiches, which they had all helped make in the morning.

She said: “My mother’s house had been bombed down and we had just moved into a block of flats.”

She added: “It was so crowded that my eldest sister slept in the bath!”

Marge and Stewart started married life in Winchmore Hill, London, where their first son Ian was born in November 1955.

Soon after they moved to police accommodation in Crouch End and their second son Kevin arrived in April 1958.

Their youngest son Graeme was born in 1964 and around this time the family relocated to Andover when Stewart, now 83, transferred to Hampshire Police.

The family lived in various Hampshire towns before settling in Basingstoke in 1968, where they were given police accommodation in Abbey Road, Popley.

Their move coincided with the opening of the M3, and Stewart was the very first police volunteer to work on the motorway.

Stewart, who was a founding member of St Gabriel’s Scout group, retired from the police in 1978, but spent a further 16 years working for the force in a desk role.

Marge took up a post as receptionist at a doctor’s surgery in Popley, before being offered the role of practice manager at Bermuda Close Surgery, retiring aged 62.

The couple have lived in Oakridge Towers for the last 14 years, and celebrated their anniversary with a surprise party organised by their sons at The Swan, in Sherborne St John.

The couple also received a card from The Queen.