Former Kidlington greengrocers Jan and Bob Burgess have shown they are a diamond couple after celebrating 60 years of wedded bliss.

The Stratfield Road residents celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary on Thursday surrounded by their beloved family.

And son Tim and daughter Lindsey didn’t have far to go – he lives next door and she lives opposite.

Speaking after their family threw the couple a celebratory party, Mrs Burgess said: “It has been wonderful.”

The 79-year-old said: “I wouldn’t change a minute of it. There have been lots of tears, but lots of fun. I have a wonderful, wonderful family.”

Both keen athletics fans, the former Temple Cowley School pupils met at the Iffley Road running track in Oxford when she was 15 and he 17.

Mrs Burgess said: “We sat together on the coach home and fell in love.”

Four years later they wed at St James Church in Cowley.

She said: “I can remember it well, it was a dull November day. I had the most beautiful dress on and the wet was seeping up it fast!”

They continued to share a love of athletics, seeing Roger Bannister run the first sub-four-minute mile at the Iffley Road track on May 6, 1954.

She said: “When we had our family we brought them up in the same way, they loved their sports.”

On leaving school, Mrs Burgess worked in administration at the Morris Motors factory in Cowley, while her husband worked on the factory floor.

The couple later ran Burgess Greengrocers in Atkyns Road, Headington, between the 1960s and 1980s.

On the secret of a long and happy marriage, she said: “There is no secret really.

“I think it is just loving each other, respecting each other and looking in the same direction.”

The strength of the family – which includes four grand-childen and three great-granchildren – was vital as Mr Burgess battled face and neck cancer in the last year, she said.

Mrs Burgess said: “We are a wonderful family unit. I couldn’t be more proud of them.”

Mr Burgess, 81, said: “It has been fantastic.

“It is about sharing things 50/50. It doesn’t always work out, but overall it does.”