A COUPLE from Chester who met at the fair have celebrated a remarkable 70 years of marriage.

Lawrence and Marion Dutton were married in 1941 at St Mary's Without-the-Walls, Handbridge after meeting as teenagers at Pat Collins fairground on the Little Roodee.

Lawrence, now 92, was on a seven-day pass from wartime service in Northern Ireland.

Their honeymoon was a snatched four-day holiday in Blackpool where they danced in the Tower Ballroom to Reginald Dixon on the Wurlitzer organ.

Lawrence was a Cathedral chorister in the 1920s and 30s and his family were well-known nurserymen in Queen's Park, with a shop and stall in the old Chester Market.

At the end of the war he returned to working for Cheshire County Council in the motor taxation department until 1978.

Lawrence was always a keen sportsman, particularly tennis, table tennis and football, later as a referee.

Marion's father was works manager with the Anglo-American Oil Company, later to become Esso and her grandparents farmed at Ledsham. On leaving school Marion, now 91, worked with a firm of Chester solicitors.

Over the years the family has extended to two children, seven grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren.