"I said, 'Go away'," Joyce recalls of the first time she laid eyes on Len.

He had been in the merchant navy for two years before he joined the army in 1943 and he tried to regale Joyce with tales of the sea.

Joyce was still not convinced, but when her mother met Len it was all over.

"Mum said, 'He's the one'. Between him and my mum I was married."

They married six weeks later at St George's Church in Malvern on March 14, 1945.

This Sunday they will celebrate 65 years of marriage.

"He hasn't been a bad old bloke," Joyce says.

Len soon went back on active service, first with landing craft and then with an ordnance unit in New Guinea.

"We used to go up the rivers to native villages and pick up fruit and vegetables and bring them down for the hospitals," Len said.

Joyce grew up in a military family and knew what it was like for loved ones to be away for long periods.

"It was a different time, a different era," Len says of the whirlwind courtship.

They moved to Melton in about 1975 and Len took up work as a painter and decorator.

He was one of the original members of the Melton RSL sub-branch and is still actively involved. Together, they've raised two children.

Joyce says they have always spent time together, despite

the ups and downs that life can dish up.

"We always got on well and had a good time."

Len says "noone being the boss" has helped them stick together. "She likes a chat and I'm a quiet bloke. It seems to work."