THEY first clocked each other over a pint at the local pub.

Now, more than six decades later, this diamond couple are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary.

Margaret and Robin Davis will be raising a toast today to their colourful 60 years of marriage after 'mucking along' together over the years.

It all began in 1956 when the soon-to-be farmer's wife – a 19-year-old Margaret Green – met her future husband across the bar at her dad's pub the Sow and Pigs in Poundon.

The 18-year-old Mr Davis had just started working on Elm Farm in Stratton Audley where he has now racked up almost 65 years as a herdsman.

Mrs Davis, a former shop assistant at Alf Evans & Sons estate management in Bicester, said: "I remember the first time I saw him as he would come up to the pub every Sunday.

"I definitely noticed him in the pub with his uncle and friends and it was a few weeks later that we met up.

"I had been to the Regal cinema in London Road, Bicester, with friends and he met me there to drop me home – that was nice."

The pair dated for the next year or so and were engaged by the following Christmas in 1957 in what Mrs Davis described as a casual moment due to Mr Davis being 'not a big romantic'.

Five months later the couple wed at St Mary and St Edburga Church, Stratton Audley, on May 3, 1958, with around 80 of their nearest and dearest on what the couple recall as an incredibly hot day for the occasion.

The newlyweds went on to host a reception at the Poundon Village Hall before heading off to London, avoiding the bus strike at the time, to visit places such as Greenford and to do some sightseeing.

In the years that followed they went on to bring up their four children Kevin, Jackie, Rita and Kim, before becoming grandparents to four grandchildren.

When asked what the secret was to a long and happy marriage, Mrs Davis said: "You just keep mucking along together don't you, sharing the problems, the bad times and the good times together."

Mr Davis added: "In a marriage you have got to have give and take. All marriages will have up and downs and in my day you talked them through and sorted them out together.

"Also it helps if you share interests, we both like country music and I used to like the football so we would go to games together."

The happy couple will toast the marriage milestone with about 120 friends and family at a party tomorrow at Highfield Social Club in Bicester – before Mrs Davis heads off on Saturday in hope that the happy occasion will bring about luck for Oxford United's away game against Blackburn.