It began with a Valentine’s Day card…

And on Wednesday, the couple, Ellen (83) and William (86) Pasturel celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary.

The pair, who have two children, four grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandson, met after the then Ellen Baker sent her future husband a Valentine’s card.

‘I was friends with William’s sister and she wanted to send a card to my cousin and asked me to send one to William,’ Mrs Pasturel said.

‘I had never met him but I just did it. He has never sent me one back after all these years.’

Mr Pasturel proposed by buying a Triumph motorcycle and the pair spent many years riding it across the Island and meeting friends at Milano Bars on the Five Mile Road.

They married on 19 July 1952 at St Luke’s Church at 6 am, so that they could catch a ferry at 8 am for their honeymoon in London.

‘The party carried on right into the day,’ Mrs Pasturel said. ‘The milkman said he was going to pop in and ended up staying, so no one had any milk that day.

‘I drank too much champagne in the morning and I was sick the whole way on the boat and spent the next two days in bed. The boat took about 12 hours to get to Weymouth and then we had to take a train for five hours to London,’ she added.

Despite contending with a number of health issues – Mr Pasturel suffers from dementia and Mrs Pasturel has almost lost all her hearing – the couple says that their mantra, ‘you mustn’t dwell on bad things’, has kept them going.

And they still spend hours talking at breakfast and enjoy walking along Jersey’s coast.

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