A BUILDER who met his future wife shortly after he broke her brother’s jaw still managed to get the girl!

Richard, 72, and Shirley Chambers, 71, of Kennedy Road, Bicester, celebrated their golden wedding on Friday.

Mr Chambers said he was about nine when he jumped from a scaffold pole in a playground, in Harrow on the Hill, and the other end hit his wife’s brother Dave Tompkins in the face.

He said: “Dave ended up in hospital. I found out where he lived and went round to the house to take some comics. His mum answered the door and said: ‘Are you the little Irish boy who put my Dave in hospital?’ “Shirley was hiding behind her mother, but I could see this little girl with blonde hair and tight curls.

“I thought, she was a nice girl, not knowing she was going to be my future wife. Afterwards I became very good friends with the family.”

The pair married more than a decade later, and when their honeymoon was over, Mr Chambers started commuting to Bicester where he was building new homes in the Longfields area.

Originally from West Ireland, he worked with his dad Thomas, and brothers Frank and Nick, in the family building firm T Chambers and Sons.

The whole family then moved to Bicester where Mr Chambers built his own home. They had six children, twins Francine and Jacqueline, Daniel, Sean, Catherine and Shirley, and have 10 grandchildren, five step-grandchildren and one step-great-grandchild.

For their anniversary their children got together and while the couple were on holiday gave their kitchen a makeover.

Asked the secret of a long and happy marriage, Mr Chamber said: “We would repeat the words the priest said to us on our wedding day, always give complete love, trust and understanding to each other.”