TWO former workers at Eastleigh's now defunct Pirelli factory have celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary.

Aniela and Stanislaw Frankowski were married as the Second World War broke out in 1939 and they were forced out of their native Poland by the Nazi regime.

Eight years later - via stints working in Austria and Italy - the couple and their four children arrived in Britain where a refugee camp in Chandler's Ford on the site of the current Asda superstore was the first place they could call home.

Aniela tended a small allotment patch and kept a handful of animals, which were to provide the family with the bulk of their meals.

Stan managed to get jobs labouring on building sites and farms and latterly at Pirelli where they both worked until retirement.

They moved into their first and only home in Hamilton Road, Bishopstoke, in 1956 and raised their family of six children.

The couple, who have eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, were the toast of their family as they celebrated their anniversary.

Aniela, now 87, said: "There is no secret to it. We are just happy now still and stay together always."

The couple met when Stan, also 87, fixed Aniela's shoes in the cobblers where he worked in their home city of Krakow.

Eldest child Bogdan Frankowski, now 65, said: "They show what it is to work through what were some really tough times, I think their longevity is down to that really working hard all their lives.

"Whatever they did, they did if for us children and that is why we are still an extremely close family and very proud of them."