‘I’m surprised we’re still standing’: Couple, both 95, celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary after first meeting more than 10,000 miles away in India during the Second World War
- Veterans Madge and Basil Lambert, both 95, first met during war in 1944 in India
- They captured hearts of the nation when they danced on Strictly Come Dancing
- Mrs Lambert says she was the reason Prince Harry proposed to Meghan Markle
As they recreate their wedding photo in the garden of their Chichester home, veterans Madge and Basil Lambert laugh with disbelief that it has been 70 years since they first said: ‘I do’.
‘I’m surprised we’re still standing,’ Mrs Lambert said, reflecting on the war that brought the pair together, the army deployments that could have torn them apart and the unexpected celebrity they found after their love affair played-out on the Strictly Come Dancing dance floor in 2016.
Now both 95-years-old, the couple first met in 1944 almost 10,000 miles from home in Chittagong, India, when the Allies began to turn the tables on the Japanese in the Burma Campaign.
Basil and Madge Lambert war veterans who are due to celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary next week
Mrs Lambert had responded to a desperate plea in the spring of 1944 from Lord Louis Mountbatten, head of South East Asia Command, for more nurses to serve in the Far East. Mr Lambert had joined the Army in 1943.
The couple’s Second World War love story captured the hearts of the nation when they appeared on BBC1’s Strictly Come Dancing on Remembrance Sunday.
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‘We didn’t know we were going to actually be part of a dance and apparently neither did lots of the people on the show. It was absolutely wonderful,’ Mrs Lambert said.
The dance, which saw the elderly couple embrace at the end of a routine about their lives performed by professional dancers AJ Pritchard and Chloe Hewitt, seemingly also touched the Queen, as since their appearance they have been invited to three of Her Majesty’s garden parties.
The couple were married at St. Mary’s Church in Horsell in 1947 after years of sending letter to one another
It was Chittagong, India that the couple’s romance was kindled and they enjoyed trips to the beach and the cinema
Such public figures have the couple become, that Mrs Lambert counts one meeting with Prince Harry as the reason he proposed to Meghan Markle.
Pointing to a silver-framed picture of her cheek-to-cheek with the grinning Prince, she said: ‘I told him to hurry up and get on with it and three weeks later I saw they were engaged! I’m a bit annoyed about it though – I thought he would have chosen me.’
Earlier this year, Madge co-authored a book about their enduring love affair, Some Sunny Day, which was listed as an Amazon Books Best Seller. She has already sold thousands of copies.
Earlier this year, Madge co-authored a book about their enduring love affair, Some Sunny Day
It tells how, at just 21-years-old, Mrs Lambert, a newly-trained nurse, left her duties at Stoke Mandeville hospital in Buckinghamshire to sail on a troopship through the dangerous waters of the Bay of Biscay where she celebrated her 21 st birthday.
The passage, which took three weeks, took them on in to the Mediterranean Sea, where German U-Boats prowled, then through the Suez Canal.
The young girl from Dover, Kent, finally arrived at a bamboo-clad medical centre in Chittagong where she treated troops for Malaria by day and accompanied soldiers to dances by night.
The couple’s Second World War love story captured the hearts of the nation when they appeared on BBC1’s Strictly Come Dancing on Remembrance Sunday
‘They needed us to keep them company and chat to them. To cheer them up, I suppose. Sometimes we would only have two hours sleep and then we’d be up again for our shift during the day. You just got on with it,’ Mrs Lambert said.
Meanwhile Mr Lambert and his younger brother, Brian, from Woking in Surrey, had signed up for the army in 1943 and travelled for three months to get to India. There was a constant fear of attack by a German ‘wolfpack’ submarine.
Although they only lived 80 miles apart in England, it was here, in the scorching heat of Chittagong that the couple’s romance was kindled.
Mrs Lambert counts one meeting with Prince Harry as the reason he proposed to Meghan Markle
‘We met through my friend Mack, who was Basil’s roommate. We’d been out together but it wasn’t going to work really,’ she said.
‘I needed a stamp so I asked Mack and he said he did in his room. I went back with him and there was Basil reading something with his feet up on a little table. He didn’t even acknowledge me until right at the end – it was very rude.
‘When we left, I turned to Mac and said: “Who does he think he is?”’
Defending himself, Mr Lambert said: ‘She was very beautiful. I heard what Madge said about me and I thought: “Well I must make up for that!” so I took her out for dinner.’
The couple, both 95, with Dame Vera Lynne at VE anniversary celebrations in 2005
‘Yes, and he purposefully put me off Mack!’ Mrs Lambert added.
Despite living in the same unit, the couple only had time to meet up once a fortnight at most, but they quickly grew fond of one another.
So, when Mr Lambert was posted to Rangoon, now called Yangon, in Myanmar they made sure to enjoy what little time they did have together, going on trips to the cinema and the beach.
The couple live a quiet, contented life, regularly catching up with their two children, Carolyn, 67, and Angela, 65 for family meals
The couple met when Mrs Lambert needed a stamp from Mr Lambert’s roommates room in a Burmese war camp
Mrs Lambert, a newly-trained nurse, left her duties at Stoke Mandeville hospital in Buckinghamshire to sail on a troopship
When he left, the couple promised to write to each other every day, even as Mr Lambert moved on to Vietnam and an island off the coast of Borneo. Their letters sustained them until they were reunited in England in 1947.
Basil and Madge married shortly afterwards at St. Mary’s Church in Horsell.
‘It was absolutely lovely,’ Mr Lambert said. ‘I can’t believe that it was 70 years ago,’ Mrs Lambert added.
‘We’re incredibly lucky to have got this far, I think that’s what you could call it – luck, because we haven’t done anything different to anyone else,’ Mrs Lambert said.
Away from their new-found fame the couple live a quiet, contented life, regularly catching up with their two children, Carolyn, 67, and Angela, 65 for family meals and going to swimming and gym classes on a Friday.
Their secret, Mrs Lambert said, is to take each day as it comes. For Mr Lambert, it is simply to ‘listen to Madge!’.
Their secret, Mrs Lambert said, is to take each day as it comes. For Mr Lambert, it is simply to ‘listen to Madge!’
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