IT wasn’t quite love at first sight when Frank Walker and Joan Boulton first set eyes on each other as teenage members of staff at a large private house during the late 1930s.

But it was the beginning of a relationship with legs and today (Thursday) Mr and Mrs Walker, of Lea, near Malmesbury, celebrate a remarkable milestone – 70 years of marriage.

The key to their ongoing harmony? They never argue – well, not much.

“We never argue, we just consult each other and talk things through. We’ve never had a row,” said 93-year-old Mr Walker.

“It’s all a case of give and take,” said Mrs Walker, who is 92 this Sunday. “We don’t argue. Well, hardly ever.”

Mr Walker was 14 when he started work as the gardening boy at a huge house that is now The Priory nursing home in Tetbury. Nearly three years later 15 year-old Joan Boulton began there as an under house maid.

Mrs Walker remembers the first time she saw her husband-to-be. “He came into the kitchen to clean the ladies' shoes.”

Was she impressed? “Not much,” she remembers. “You’re not, are you, until you get to know someone.”

What impressed Mr Walker, however, was that “she was so clean and neat”.

They began seeing each other but Mr Walker can’t quite remember their first date. “There was a picture house in Tetbury but we never had any money in those days,” he said.

When he was 18, and with Britain plunged into war, he joined the RAF and was posted “all over the place.” He said: “We didn’t see much of each other but kept in touch by letter.”

In 1942, when Mr Walker was on leave “we went to Bristol and got engaged.”

By that time Miss Boulton was doing her bit in the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service) – the women's branch of the British Army during the Second World War.

While Mr Walker was on duty in Europe during the later stages of the war his fiancée and her family arranged their wedding at Rodmarton on Monday, May 14, 1945, six days after VE Day.

“I was up near the German border and only had two days to get back, which wasn’t at all easy because of transport problems” said Mr Walker.

“I knew he’d get back on time,” said Mrs Walker. She added: "The weather wasn’t very nice when we got married. It was raining.” But the sun has shone on the couple ever since.

Over the decades Mr Walker worked for a construction firm in Tetbury and spent 12 years as a general manager at lighting fittings company Linolite in Malmesbury before retiring.

They have two sons, David and Nigel, three grandchildren, Claire, Andrew and Jack, and a great granddaughter, ten year-old Harriet.

The couple will celebrate their platinum wedding with family on Sunday. It will be a double celebration as it is the joint birthday of Mrs Walker and her twin sister Allison, who also worked at that big house in Tetbury when Frank met Joan.