Ted Parsons, 98, and Jean Reed, 90, finally got hitched 30 years after they first met
A couple with a combined age of 188 have tied the knot to become Britain’s oldest newlyweds.
Ted Parsons, 98, and Jean Reed, 90, finally got hitched after a 30-year fling in a touching ceremony in front of family and friends.
Second World War veteran Ted popped the question to Jean earlier this year after meeting in the 1980s when his wife of 50 years suddenly passed away.
The nongenarian love birds have lived together for the last 20 years, but Ted kept his girlfriend waiting three decades before making it official.
“If I had gone down on one knee, I would have needed help to get up again,” he joked.
“I love her very much and it keeps growing with age. It started as a friendship and then it grew into something different.
“I have got to look after Jean now for the rest of my days and she has got to look after me.”
Jean wore a lilac skirt and jacket for the ceremony in Kingston-upon-Thames in Surrey last week, and Ted dressed up in a pale blue suit.
They walked down the aisle arm-in-arm with the youngest of Ted’s five children, Andrew, as best man.
Ted fought as a corporal with the Royal West Kent Infantry in Italy and North Africa during World War Two, before leaving the service and working as a handyman.
He met his new wife while painting and decorating the flats where they now live in New Malden, Surrey.
“She was the chairman of the residents’ association and was rather bossy. I thought she was a bit of an old battle axe at first,” he recalled.
But they soon became firm friends and the relationship blossomed after Ted’s wife Linda passed away in the early 1980s.
He said: “She went to the doctors one day and never came back. She had a heart attack.
“Jean helped me get through it all and has been the one for me ever since.”
On his plans for the future, Ted joked: “I don’t think we’ll be starting a family just yet. I’ll have to go on the Viagra.”
Former nurse Jean has never married before and has no children.
Speaking about her wedding day, she said: “I was so nervous.
“We’ve been together so long and I never thought we’d ever get married. We are great mates and Ted is a wonderful man.
“Afterwards, I was really pleased and a bit relieved if I’m honest.
“Ted is always laughing. You hardly ever see him down. He’s just a lovely, happy person and is a lovely man to be around.”
The couple were just a few years short of making the Guinness Book of Records.
Widow Lillian Hartley, aged 95 years, and retired military veteran Allan Marks, aged 98 years, married in California last March with a combined age of 193.
