WHEN Mary Alexander became a teenage bride, her mother warned it would never last.

But her marriage to husband Joseph is still going strong - after 70 years.

The couple, who married in 1938 at All Saints' Church, in Medlock, Manchester, are celebrating their platinum wedding anniversary.

Mary, 88, and Joseph, 91, have two children, seven grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren, one great-great-grandchild, Olivia, and another on the way.

They met in 1936 when Mary was just 16 and two years later they were married.

Mary said: "My mum thought I was too young and that our marriage would never last, but she did sign the papers that allowed me to get married.

"After Joseph and I married we moved into a lovely little house for which we paid just seven shillings a week - that's 35 pence."

Their early married life was disrupted by the Second World War but the couple struggled through.

Mary said: "I had my daughter Patricia in the following March then in September the war started. I was evacuated to Altrincham with a five-month-old baby and because Joseph was in the Territorials he was posted out but we both didn't know where the other one was for a while.

"Joseph was in the Army all the way through the war but I came back to the area and went to work making parachutes.

"I remember we spent most nights in the shelters. In 1940 it was the blitz of Manchester and I was at my mother's when our house got bombed.

"Joseph did get leave and my son Peter was born in 1943, so they were both war babies."

Mary and Joseph finally settled in Handforth, near Wilmslow, and have spent a blissful 46 years there.

Their secret for a long and happy marriage? "Always being together and thinking of each other," said Mary.