A RISHTON couple who met while translating wartime intelligence messages are celebrating 65 years of marriage.

Former secretary of Great Harwood Cricket Club and former treasurer of Rishton Cricket Club, Jim Clarke, 88, and his wife Jean, of Spring Street, Rishton, were based in Bedford during the war where they translated German messages from Morse Code into letters.

Jean 89, originally from Northumberland, said: “We had no idea what the messages said, but we knew if there were three letters in a row, the message was S.O.S.”

“I was a corporal when I met Jim. He was transferred to the hut I was in charge of and it all started off from there.

"When we heard he was being sent abroad, we decided to get married before he went.”

The couple married in Jim’s home town of Great Harwood on October 20, 1944 at St Bartholomew’s Church.

After the war, when Jim returned from his intelligence work in Rangoun and Delhi, the pair settled in East Lancashire, at first living with Jim’s mother in Great Harwood, before buying their first home in Rishton.

The couple have two daughters and two grandaughters. Jean said: “It’s give and take for a happy marriage.

"You won’t be alike, you will have differences and you will have arguments, but it’s all right if you make sure to make up before going to bed.”