Newspaper clipping headed 'They've been sweethearts for 85 years' by Mike Bagshaw, celebrating the 70th wedding anniversary of Louise and Arthur Thompson. A photograph of the couple sits below the article labelled 'Sweethearts Louise and Arthur Thompson.'

An insert on the top left of the page mentions a 50th wedding anniversary being celebrated in Marks Tey. A second headline shares the page 'Royal Skipper left lipstick message' recording the suicide of a man named Clive Smith.

Eighty five-years ago, two children held hands at the old Copford National School and talked of marriage. On February 6, 1904, childhood dreams came true as a blushing, Cockney servant girl called Louise became Mrs Arthur Thompson at Birch Parish Church. And 70 quarrel-free years of marriage later, Louise and Arthur are still sweethearts - with 7 children, 14 grandchildren and 27 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild. Yesterday, Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, of Wilson's Lane, Marks Tey, chalked up their 70th wedding anniversary - just 12 years short of the national married life record. The couple will be celebrating at home on Saturday with a party for their five daughters and two sons. Their formula for matrimonial bliss? "Work hard and get tired" said Mr. Thompson "That way you don't have the energy to quarrel." And Mr. Thompson has another formula - a cure for rheumatism. 'Bee Stings' "I.ve kept bees for 50 years and I must have been stung a thousand times. I have never suffered from rhuematism and I believe it's the stings that kept it away," he said. Mr. Thompson agreed with actor Jack Warner, who recently claimed on television to have been cured of rhuematism by bee stings on affected limbs. "But I reckon it doesn't matter where they sting you," said Mr. Thompson. After leaving school at 14, Mrs. Thompson, now 92, went "into service" at Feering Vicarage before going to London. Still in service she worked in the Hyde Park area and st James Park area. About two years later, she returned home to work as a maid at the Lexden home of a London businessman. "She came to see me," said Mr Thompson/ "I asked her if she was still free and she said 'yes.' and we got engaged." Son of the village policeman at Latchingdon, near Maldon, Mr. Thompson worked as a farm labourer for two years before becoming a brickmaker at a Marks Tey family brick manufacturing business. During the First World War, Mr. Thompson served as a private with the Essex Regiment, fighting at the Somme and Ypres. Although a member of Colchester Branch of the Old Contemptibles' Association - the World War One veterans' club - he is now unable to attend meetings. For 50 years, we worked as a seedsman for Dobbies Seed Merchants, Marks Tey - riding to work each day on a penny-farthing bicycle. But the roads between Mr. Thompson's Copford home and Lexden, where his fiance worked, were so bad that he had to walk to see his sweetheart. "There were no buses in those days," said Mr. Thompson. After the wedding, his wife faced a tight housekeeping budget. "I had to keep seven children on 18 shillings a week," said Mrs. Thompson. The couple made ends meet by growing vegetables and keeping chickens in the back garden. How do the Thompsons think life has changed over the last 70 years? "Everything is much better - there's no comparison between then and now," said Mr. Thompson. But he had one complaint - Modern beer. "They don't make it strong as they used to. And I like my pint," He said.