Kissing and compromise is key to 75 year marriage
Adrian Harms/BBCA couple from Merstham who are celebrating 75 years of marriage have said the secret is "give and take" and to never argue over money.
Ted and Ellen Hickman, aged 97 and 95, got married at St James' Church in Clerkenwell, London, on 16 December, 1950.
The pair moved to Merstham in the early 1950s and went on to have two sons, before eventualy welcoming two granddaughters and a great grandson.
Mr Hickman told BBC Radio Surrey: "I love my Ellen, I do... every time I send a card for a birthday, always the address is, 'To my Ellen'."
Adrian Harms/BBCMrs Hickman joked that marriage had been "hard work", adding, "We've had our ups and our downs, but we've carried on, we stuck together... We've had two beautiful sons and we've been happy."
'Give and take'
The couple met outside a record shop at Chapel Market, in Islington, north London, not long after Mr Hickman had qualified as a paratrooper for the Army.
He noticed the "beautifully dressed" Ellen, who said trips to a cinema in Tottenham Court Road were when "we really got to know each other".
It was about a year later, after Mr Hickman had returned from an Army deployment, that the couple officially got together.
Mrs Hickman, who is quite tall and wore heels at the time, recalled a comment from her father.
"When my father first met him, he said, 'you can't go out with him - he's too short'," she said.
Not to be deterred, the couple went from strength-to-strength and got married in front of friends and family.
The day itself was "cold and snowing", Mrs Hickman said, and confessed she did not like her bouquet when it arrived.
"That was the worst thing for me," she remarked.
She revealed a few secrets to their happy union.
One she said was compromise, or "give and take" in her words. Another was a commitment to never argue about finances.
The third was to never part without a kiss, a promise Mrs Hickman said they always kept unless there had been a "real" row.
"That'd be different, then we'd go out and bang the door," she joked.
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