Childhood sweethearts are celebrating their golden wedding anniversary today.

Malcolm and Eileen Cummings met when they were just seven and five years old.

"I can remember the day very clearly," said 72-year-old Malcolm, a former deputy head of Worcester police sub-division. "We promised that when we grew up we would get married."

The couple, of Galahad Way in Stourport-on-Severn, had to endure years of separation when their families moved away from the area.

Not until Malcolm finished his National Service with the military police did they find each other again.

"I had her in mind all that time. When we met up again that little girl had become a beautiful young woman and I was quite surprised she found me anything other than an ordinary run of the mill fellow. We became engaged almost immediately and 18 months later we were married."

They walked down the aisle of St Barnabas Church in Rainbow Hill, Worcester in 1956.

Mr Cummings was one of the region's top police officers, joining the Worcester city force in 1954.

He was deputy head of the Evesham sub-division in 1969 and deputy head of the Worcester sub-division in 1977, before he retired in 1987 when he was chief superintendent at Kidderminster.

Mrs Cummings, who is now 70, trained as a nursing sister at the former Worcester Royal Infirmary.

She officially retired 10 years ago but worked part time in a nursing home up until Christmas last year.

The couple have twin boys, Andrew and Philip, who will join them tomorrow when they celebrate the anniversary with lunch at Boughton Park Golf Club.

Today, they will have a romantic meal for just the two of them.

Mr Cummings said that if there was a secret to successful marriage he would have bottled it, sold it and be a very rich man.

"You have to remind yourself that you are lucky, through the happy times and the sad times.

"I think that the romance has to come from the man, because it comes naturally for a woman.

"The man has to try and be romantic, such as when we went out on Valentine's night and I insisted on wearing my white dinner jacket."