TEENAGE sweethearts who met at church will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary next week.

Sid and Alice Hasling, who now live in Ferndown, were married following a four-year courtship on February 27 1943.

The couple met at a Baptist church in Camberwell, London, when they were just 19 and 15 years old.

But the young lovers were forced to be apart from each other following the outbreak of World War Two, when Sid, now 93, was called away to serve with the Royal Engineers.

Alice, now 89, who worked in communications for the Air Ministry during the war, said life had to go on as usual without her new husband.

“We just carried on with life really,” she said.

“We still went out to the pictures and out with friends. There were still quite a lot of us around, and we just carried on.”

They were reunited following Sid’s evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940.

The couple, who have two daughters and two grandchildren, moved to Ferndown in 1986 in search of a bowls club with a bar.

Alice said: “My uncle and my cousin lived in Mudeford, but we were also really looking for the right bowls club.

“You couldn’t have a drink in many then, and so Sid really wanted to join the West Moors Bowls Club. We’re still members there – but we’re social members now.”

The couple will celebrate their platinum anniversary surrounded by loved ones at the Miramar in Bournemouth, and said they are delighted one of their daughters will be visiting from her home in California.

But despite their impressive anniversary, Alice and Sid say staying together is about luck.

Alice said: “We both think we’re just very lucky to have made it.

“We have got very lucky indeed. We’ve made it really – so far we have been very healthy and happy together.”