No back-pedalling for Bill

"We had a bit of a problem," Bill said.

"I lived five miles from Audrey and the flowers came to me and the button holes went to her.

"So I had to grab the flowers, jump on my push bike and ride five miles but then no one would let me in because it's bad luck.

"We swapped over and then I had to ride back."

Years later, now with three daughters, seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren (with two more on the way), the Padbury couple still chuckle about the hiccup.

To celebrate their 65th wedding anniversary, the Woodvale Baptist Church's Over-50s Fellowship held a party for the Watsons, married at a parish church in Anlaby in the UK on March 25, 1950.

Last Friday's event was attended by family and friends, and they received a number of congratulatory letters from dignitaries including Queen Elizabeth, Governor General Peter Cosgrove, and Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

"We'd like another 65 years. It's been happy right through and I wouldn't change anything," Bill said. "You've got to work as a team, accept each others pitfalls and if you have an argument forget it, don't hold on to it; that's the main thing."

Bill said theirs was a story of "love at first sight". He spotted Audrey when he started a new job after realising a life fishing off Murmansk was not for him.

"I decided not to go back to sea. I thought it's not the life for a married life because you did three to six weeks depending where you were and then you had a 48-hour turnaround to go back; so if you saw your wife one-and-a-half days every six weeks you were doing well," he said.

"So I said "no, Im not having that" so I left and went back to where I worked during the war. It was a munitions factory, got working there and saw Audrey.

"I was walking through and saw her there; she worked a six turret lathe, and as I was walking past a friend of mine came up and said "Im going out with her" and I thought to myself "not before I do", I went across and asked and she said yes."

Audrey said her tip for a happy marriage was making time for one another. "Wherever Bill goes, I always go with him," she said.

Bill, who joined the Australian Air Force when they immigrated to Perth in 1960, agreed.

"Yes, we always go everywhere together," he said.

"It was only when we were first married and the children came Audrey would go and see a film one night and I would go and see it the next night."