They might have it quiet now but ex-RAF flyer Rowland Harris and his wife faced a desperate race against death together. Mike Buckingham reports a diamond wedding with a touch of the Indiana Jones.

ROWLAND Harris flew in the bombing raids which crippled Germany's wartime fuel supplies and with his wife, Barbara, escaped in a midnight dash from revolutionary Iran with murderous brigands on their heels.

Apart from that, Rowland, 83, muses, it's been a quiet life.

The Gwent ex-RAF flight engineer with the ready laugh is celebrating 60 years of marriage to Barbara who as one of Britain's few female metallurgists is herself somewhat out of the ordinary.

"When I was 17 all I ever wanted to do was the fly with the RAF" Rowland said as he and Barbara proudly showed off their diamond wedding congratulations card from the Queen.

"The RAF sent me for asessment at Penarth and then the thrilling day when I got a letter telling me to report for training."

First stop for the Tredegar-born lad of a family of eight was Lord's cricket ground in London which during the war was a mustering point for RAF aircrew.

"I wanted to be a pilot but they told me that if I trained as a flight engineer I would be able to go in straight away.

"The pay was 14 shillings a week and we had white flashes in our forage caps which marked us out as trainee aircrew.

"We were sent to Torquay to learn basic navigation among other things and then to St Athan for engineering training.

"There an officer asked for 10 volunteers to go overseas and I found myself stepping forward.

"After being given my sergeant's stripes and wings they sent me up to Blackpool to wait for a troopship at which point they found out I wasn't quite 18" Rowland smiled.

"So they sent me home for a fortnight until after my birthday after which I was on a troopship with thousands of others on our way to the Middle East via Cape Town.

"We went to a base near Jerusalem which had clapped-out Wellington bombers used for training.

"A lot of lads died in training and were buried at the end of the runway.

"My crew which included navigator 'Taffy' Tucker from Risca was sent to Egypt where we saw the Liberators in which we were were to fly against German oil installations at Ploesti in Rumania."

Southern Italy from which the attacks were launched is, in winter, a quagmire. Rowland still has some pictures taken at the waterlogged base.

"During the 10 raids we were tossed around by ground fire but it was not as bad as what the weather could do" he recalls.

"My fear was crashing in the mountains or the sea in which case survival was unlikely since Liberators were simply ripped apart when they hit water.

"Our main concern to be honest was not to let one another down.

"Later we supported the Army in driving the Germans out of Italy and after After V-E Day were given the job of flying British ex-PoWs back to the UK."

After demob Rowland got a job at Ebbw Vale steelworks. It was while waiting with a mutual friend at Newport station that he first saw Miss Barbara Cox, who had taken the unusual step of qualifying as a metallurgist.

The couple were married at St John's Maindee in 1947, Roland registering at Newport Technical College to gain formal engineering qualifications while they made their home in Maindee.

After working for British Aluminium Co. and BP Rowlands eye fell on a newspaper advertisement by Lipton's tea for production engineers in Pakistan where they remained until 1968.

"Again I saw an advert this time for production engineers for the National Iranian Oil Co.

"I got the job and we ended up in Tarbliz up near the Iraq and Turkish border.

"By this time the 1978-79 revolution had begun and there was shooting outside our apartment block.

"The local Iranian Army commander put a tank outside our flat to protect us.

"Unfortunately they later strung the poor fellow up in the town square.

"It was definitely time to go.

"A colleague had a Land-Rover which we loaded up with jerry-cans of petrol and with him and his wife set out for the Turkish border through country held by revolutionaries.

"As good luck would have it the locals were intent on going South to take part in the revolution and ignored us.

"When we got to the Turkish border it was open and we drove through. One of our managers had decided to go back to Teheran to his family and was killed.

"Even then there was danger because we wrere driving through Kurdish territory with the likelihood of being robbed and killed.

"The Land-Rover battled on through snow drifts and appalling roads. It was so cold the wipers froze.

"Eventually we reached Ankara where the hotel wouldn't let us in because we were so filthy.

We got a plane for home and not long afterwards I got a letter from Ayatollah Khomeini saying 'You are an expatriate engineer and you are dismissed'"

"We didn't think too much about the possibility of being killed. It was a question of having to take it in your stride"Barbara cheerily observed..

"One of the things we were advised was to take bottles of whisky and copies of Playboy to bribe anyone who stopped us."

Safely home and settled in the house they had built at Croesyceiliog Rowland got a job with the Welsh Office until retiring at 65.

Still with their taste for adventure the couple like travelling. They have two daughters one of whom lives in Canada who they have visited 30 times.

The question 'to what do you owe your long and happy marriage?' falls for the Harrises in two parts.

"A happy marriage is having a wife who will cheerfully stay with you through snow, mountains and murderous brigands" Rowland says.

"The fact that it has been a long one is due to the excellent engineering qualities of Land-Rovers."