Couple married for 75 years die within hours of each other

George and Jean Spear celebrated their anniversary in August

The couple were married in the Second World War (iStock)

An elderly couple married during the Second World War have died within hours of each other, just weeks after celebrating their 75^th wedding anniversary.

The couple died on Friday in the Queensway-Carleton Hospital in Ottawa, Canada.

Jean Spear, 94, had been admitted due to pneumonia, and her husband George Spear, 97, later fell into a deep sleep and was taken to the same hospital, the Ottawa Citizen reports.

Daughter Heather Spear told the newspaper: “We tell stories to make ourselves feel better. But this defies any sort of logic. We were overwhelmed by the suddenness of it.”

Mr Spear, a Canadian soldier, met his wife in a dance hall in a London suburb in 1941.

“I was there in a red dress, my husband will tell you, and he came over and asked me to dance,” Mrs Spear told CBC News in 2006.

“And he had his army boots on but he could dance. And his rhythm was perfect. So we didn’t dance with anyone else the whole evening,” she said.

They were married in 1944 and Ms Spear moved to Canada before the war ended. The couple returned to London with their two children in 2006 for Ms Spear to receive an MBE from the Queen for her work with Canadian war brides and London bomb victims during the Second World War.

The couple had celebrated their 75^th wedding anniversary on 22 August.

Earlier this year, an elderly couple near Leicester who had been married for 71 years died just four minutes apart from each other.