A COUPLE who planned their white wedding in less than five days during the Second World War today celebrate 65 years of wedded bliss.

Jim and Alice Ewins, now 88 and 86 respectively, met in 1941 when they both worked for the RAF at Upper Heyford.

But it was not until Mr Ewins, who worked as an aircraft fitter on Wellington bombers, was given five days leave in 1944 before being shipped off to India, that he decided to take the plunge.

He said: “I was told I had five days’s embarkation leave and I went and found her and I said: ‘What are we going to do, shall we get married?’ “I suggested doing it in the registry office, but my mother said we had to get married in a church – so we were married on the fourth day at St Ebbe’s Church, October 21, 1944.

“The neighbours all chipped in to get everything ready and we even managed to get a white wedding dress.”

For the next two years, the couple wrote to each other from either side of the globe.

Mr Ewins said: “I used to write nearly every day, although I didn’t get quite as many in return.

“I couldn’t tell her where I was until the war ended.”

Mrs Ewins (nee Phipps), who worked for the parachute section of operations at the base, was demobbed in 1945.

However, it was not until Mr Ewins eventually returned home in 1946 that the couple were able to start their married life together – in one room of Mr Ewins’s mother’s house in St Ebbe’s.

They moved into a council house in Barton in 1949, and to their current home in Squitchey Lane, Summertown, in 1973.

Mr Ewins, who was a plumber after leaving the RAF, said he believed their relationship was “fated”.

He said he remembered sitting next to her in a “sweatbox” cinema back in 1941 and offering her a bite of his apple.

He said: “I was smitten.

“We have our little moments when we have to let off steam, but we still keep together.”

The couple never had a honeymoon and have never been abroad since Mr Ewins’s wartime travels.

They have a daughter Christine, 63, a son, Peter, 60, three grandchildren and one great-grandson, all of whom live in Oxfordshire. The couple plan to mark the anniversary with a family meal.

fbardsley@oxfordmail.co.uk