Doreen and Peter Osborne will celebrate their sapphire wedding anniversary by renewing their marriage vows at the Knowle church where they married in 1944.

Peter, now 88, was about to be posted to South Africa during the Second World War when he proposed to Doreen and she accepted.

The couple, who live in Hazelbury Road, Whitchurch, met through Peter's father who worked with Doreen at packaging firm Mardon Son and Hall in St Anne's.

Peter, who had joined the RAF a month ahead of his 18th birthday, was smitten from the moment he saw a photograph of Doreen.

Doreen, 85, said: "I wasn't really interested in fellas at the time but I agreed to meet Peter outside the old Empire in Old Market.

"That evening I met him and then went off to see a girlfriend. But as time went by we got closer.

"We used to meet when he had weekend leave."

Peter, now 88, said: "I proposed before I went to South Africa – I made sure she was safe."

The couple married at St Gerard Majella Church in Knowle on April 15, 1944, with Doreen wearing a wedding dress borrowed from one of her sisters.

They held a reception for family and friends at the University Settlement in Lawrence Hill.

The second night of their honeymoon in London they spent huddling under a table as bombs fell on the capital.

After the war Peter worked for BOAC at Whitchurch Airfield and the couple lived with Doreen's mother in Ducie Road, Barton Hill.

After their eldest son Nicholas, now 64, was born Doreen contracted tuberculosis and had to spend a year in the former Winsley Sanitorium on the outskirts of Bath.

There was no antibiotic cure at the time but eventually Doreen came home.

The couple, who are Catholic, were told that they should not have any more children but within a year their daughter Anne, 61, was born and then came twins Jeffrey and Peter, 59.

The couple now have 18 grandchildren and 30 great grandchildren.

Peter worked for BOAC for 12 years before moving to John Halls Paints where he was a foreman and later went to Wills tobacco factory where he worked for 19 years until his retirement in 1984.

Doreen devoted her life to her family.

Peter is a life member of the Budgerigar Society and won many trophies for breeding budgies and finches.

He said: "I put our happy marriage down to our Christian faith.

"We've had our ups and downs but we have stood by our marriage vows."

Doreen said: "You can't go through life without a squabble now and then but I've always gone out of the front door and come in the back."

Doreen and Peter will celebrate their wedding anniversary with their immediate family and will renew their wedding vows at St Gerard Majella Church on April 19.