He narrowly escaped death when an aeroplane crashed into his Black Country home during the Second World War – and now Derek Newton is celebrating his diamond wedding anniversary.

Derek was just 14 when the damaged Halifax bomber hit and reduced the back of his house to rubble, just yards from where he had been sleeping in his bed in Adelaide Street, Brierley Hill in March 1944.

He and his nine-year-old brother David were showered in bricks, exploding ammunition and debris from the plane, but amazingly escaped injury and managed to dig their way out to safety.

The crash completely destroyed seven homes. Between 60 and 70 people were injured, but only one person was killed.

One year later, Derek laid eyes for the first time on 15-year-old Beryl, at a dance at Holly Hall Library. They hit it off but drifted apart when he left to join the Royal Navy. It was only when he returned to Dudley on leave at the age of 18 that they started courting.

“We just clicked straight away,” said Derek, now 81, of Albion Street, Wall Heath.

“There was no messing about. I didn’t even propose — my grandmother died and my dad said that seeing as there was a spare house now, we might as well get married. And that was that.”

They wed at St Thomas’ Church in Dudley on February 17, 1951. Derek worked at Round Oak Steelworks, Brierley Hill, before becoming managing director of Staffordshire Steels in Stallings Lane, Kingswinford.

In 1985 the family featured in a different kind of story. They celebrated the arrival of twin granddaughters — Faye and Jennifer — the first girls to be born into the Newton family in 153 years.

Sadly, Faye was killed in 2004 in a car crash as she travelled home from Aberystwyth University. “That hit us all hard — you can’t imagine how terrible something like that is until it happens to you,” said Beryl, aged 80. “The tragic thing was, she always got the train home. But that one time a friend offered her a lift, and they crashed.

“Family means everything to us, we’re very tight-knit.”

The couple have three sons — Stephen, David and Robert — and five grandchildren.

The secret to a long-lasting marriage, Beryl added, is a bit of give and take and a lot of good-natured bickering and teasing about things lik the time she made him a cup of coffee using gravy browning by accident.

Derek added: “I have also had a whisky every night of my life. Unless I’ve been very ill, I don’t think I’ve missed a day.”

In honour of the occasion, friends and family popped in throughout the day yesterday for cake and champagne. Their son Robert will then be hosting a party for them at his home in Enville Street tomorrow.