A COUPLE had an extra special reason to celebrate St Valentine's Day this year.

Reg and Greta Tallentire marked their diamond wedding with friends and family at their home of in Toft Hill, last Friday, and received a card from the Queen.

The couple met after chapel one Sunday evening in 1937.

Mrs Tallentire, 82, said: "I was only 16 years old, Reg was 17, and he escorted me home to Windmill and became part of the family."

The couple got engaged in 1941 and were both called-up into the army - Mr Tallentire served in Italy, on the Yugoslav border and Palestine while his wife was a medical driver in Britain. They had been due to marry on February 7, 1943, but his leave was postponed a week so they wed on St Valentine's Day at Windmill Chapel.

Mr Tallentire said: "It was tough during the war, apart from a six-week spell we were apart three years.

"Communication was poor, Greta wrote every day but on one occasion 200 letters arrived in one batch."

After the war they settled in Toft Hill, where Mr Tallentire was born, and have led active lives in the community. Mr Tallentire was a director of the family motor bodywork business, in Bishop Auckland, played cricket for Etherley for 30 years and was a member of Etherley Parish and Barnard Castle Rural District Councils.

Mrs Tallentire worked as a chiropodist, running old people's clinics across Teesdale, made the cricket club teas and has remained devoted to Windmill Chapel.

She said: "Reg always looks after me, every morning he brings my diabetes medication along with breakfast in bed."

Mr Tallentire added: "We're still as much in love now as always."

Instead of gifts many friends and relatives donated money to Windmill Chapel, which is raising money for a new roof.