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Childhood sweethearts who dressed up as bride and groom aged four celebrate their platinum anniversary 87 YEARS after the picture was taken

His trousers were a little too short and  her gown a little too big. But when it  came to partners, they had already found the perfect fit.

Seventeen years after they dressed up as bride and groom as four-year-olds, Ron and Eileen Everest got married for real.

And now, a few more years on, the couple are celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary.

Standing awkwardly, swamped in their formal wedding attire, four-year-old Ron and Eileen Everest (left) prepare to got a local carnival.  87 years later they've celebrated their 70th anniversary (right)

 The pair, both 91, joke that the black and white snap of their slightly awkward pose 87 years ago shows their ‘wedding rehearsal’.

Best of friends: A hug for Eileen from Ron in 1926

Born on the same hospital ward just months apart, they became firm friends as children  in Gillingham, Kent, thanks to their fathers, who had served together in the Navy during  the First World War.

‘Our parents decided to dress us as a bride and groom for the Gillingham Carnival,’ said Mrs Everest.

‘We were only four years old but I still remember that day so well.

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‘Our mothers were both good with a needle so they made the costumes and we walked all round Gillingham in them.’

But the pair’s friendship almost came to an end soon afterwards when Eileen’s family moved to Greenwich, South-East London.

A decade later, they moved back to Welling in Kent, but by that time, Ron’s family had settled in Gravesend after a stint in Scotland.

They were not reunited until they were 18 – when Eileen was won over by Ron’s naval uniform.

She said: ‘I started work and there was a telephone and I really wanted to ring someone.

'I asked my mother if she knew anyone who had a phone and she said she remembered an old friend who had one.

The pair (pictured here on their wedding day in 1943) - whose fathers served together in the Great War - were born seven months apart in the same hospital ward in Gillingham, Kent, and soon because inseparable

THEIR LOVE THROUGH THE AGES

1917: Thomas Everest and Colin Campbell meet and become close friends as Chief Petty Officers in the Royal Navy, serving together in the First World War

August 1921: Ronald Norman Everest is born to Thomas and Gertrude Everest at Royal Naval maternity hospital in Gillingham, Kent

March 1922: Eileen Campbell is born to Colin and Kate Campbell at the same hospital

1926: They go, aged four, to Gillingham Carnival dressed as a bride and groom

1926: Eileen and her family move to Greenwich, south-east London

1936: Ron joins the Royal Navy as a lad of 15

1940: Ron and Eileen meet up again after Eileen contacts his mother on her new telephone ~ they get engaged

1941: Ron goes out to fight the Japanese in the Far East before helping to escort the legendary Russian convoys

1943: He returns from overseas on June 7 and five days later the couple are married at St John's Church, Welling, Kent

1986: They move to Norfolk

June 12, 2013: They celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary

‘It was Ron’s mother. She said it would be nice to meet up with me and my mother and she brought Ron along too.

‘I did not think much of Ron at all. But I did think he looked handsome in his Navy uniform. To be honest I liked the look of the uniform more than him.’

After that meeting, the pair began writing to each other regularly, rekindling their childhood friendship – and beginning a romance.

Ron proposed by letter in 1940, but the wedding was put on hold  as he went off to war, seeing action in the Far East and Arctic convoys.

In 1943, they finally married for real in Welling – looking much more at ease in their formal attire than they had aged four.

Ron went back to war and was involved in the D-Day landings in June 1944, rising through the ranks to Chief Petty Officer before leaving the Navy in 1961.

He then worked as an engineer before retiring.

The couple moved to Dereham in Norfolk in 1986 to be near their only daughter, Carol, now 68, and their grandson Maxwell, 38.

Mrs Everest said: ‘We have had our ups and downs, but we have always got on. I think we will stay together for ever.’

Mr Everest added: ‘We promised to love, honour and obey – and I did all the obeying.’

Mr and Mrs Everest (nee Campbell) were family friends united by their fathers. Chief Petty Officers Thomas Everest and Colin Campbell met in the Royal Navy and as they both lived in Kent they and their wives became firm friends and fell pregnant at the same time





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