NO matter how long a couple have been together it should never be too long that they do not celebrate Valentine’s Day.

Joan and Derek Dellor celebrate their 69th wedding anniversary this year.

The couple who are both aged 92, are residents at the Doddington Lodge Care Home on Clee Hill.

They have been talking about their long life together that started in school.

During their school years, aged 12, they weren’t familiar with one another at that time, although they only lived two streets away, caught the same bus and headed to all the same spots.

As they had known of each other for a while, hanging out in the same places and attending the same school, love at first sight wasn’t really their outlook on it.

Mr Dellor described the time as a difficult time to even consider falling in love as they were “living in Kent in the time of a war with bombings all around.”

Being such a difficult time, he didn’t believe there was much time for a relationship.

He proposed to Joan on a “casual weekend”, he simply just asked her if she would marry him… she said yes.

Joan had already helped her sister prepare for her wedding day three years before Derek proposed, so she knew how she would prepare for her special day.

Joan said that “you must give, take and be considerate of each other.”

She added that “you have to make that choice to be there for each other whether that’s through good times or tragedies, we have had both in our lives.” Derek decided to keep his secret a little shorter and sweeter, with the answer being “perseverance.”

With nearly 70 years of experience, their advice to couples soon to be wed is: to spend time getting to know each other properly if you are hopefully going to spend the rest of your lives together, you can’t make a big promise without knowing each other.