The Yorkshire Vet star, 73, hospitalised for surgery as husband, 96, left at home

They've been inseparable for more than four decades but when Jean Green was rushed to hospital, her husband Steve had to spend time alone.

Britain’s oldest farming couple, , revealed the secret to their 45-year marriage while filming the new series of spin-off At Home With The Greens, and it was enough to make vet blush.

Steve, who is 96, had to spend a week alone after wife Jean, 73, was admitted to hospital for surgery, and when Peter returned Jean to her home at Stoneybrough Farm in Thirsk, it wasn’t long before the elderly couple were snuggling together in front of the fire, happy to be reunited.

“They were like two lovestruck teenagers – they had never been apart until Jean had to go into hospital. I thought I had better get out, things seemed to be getting a bit steamy,” Peter says with a smile.

“They’d never been apart for a single night up until that point and that just typifies their relationship. There’s no cross words whatsoever, but there’s lots of fun and joy along the way. It sounds corny, but it’s true.”

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Steve and Jean have been fan favourites since the show began in 2015, while Peter has been friends with the couple for more than 50 years.

“I got to know them well when I was young,” he says. “They became one of my regular clients when I started work in Thirsk in 1982. I had this banter with Mrs Green right from the word go, and we’ve always had a close relationship. I’ve always loved going to their farm because of the banter we have.”

Jean, with her brightly coloured sweatshirts and silver bracelets jangling from her wrists, is something of a tour de force on the series, while her husband appears to be much quieter, although Peter says that still waters run deep when it comes to the veteran farmer.

“Stephen is more of a thinker, but once you get him going he’s quite a conversationalist. When they were in the first flush of love, he would sit on his tractor out in a field, and he showed me some of the poems he would write to Jean there. When they renewed their wedding vows after 40 years, he produced one of the poems out of his pocket, which I thought was rather nice.”

Peter admits that filming with the no-nonsense couple can be something of a challenge, for while Steve may be taking things slower in his nineties, sprightly Jean is still looking for adventure.

“You are never quite sure what she is going to come out with next. Some of it can be a little repetitive, some of it may not be suitable for television,” he says with a laugh. “We’ve got to accept them for who they are, and that their whole revolves around their farm. You are limited to some extent what new things you can do with them, but Jean always has some ideas. In the new series she thinks about having a tattoo, and I never saw that one coming.”

Jean ends up enlisting Peter’s help in getting her first inking. “Stephen had said to his daughter [Sarah, now 40] that if she ever came home with a tattoo, she would be kicked out,” says Peter. “I don’t think he would have carried that out, he is such a gentle man. But when Jean came home with the tattoo on her arm, his face was a picture, and you could see in his mind that the old cogs were whirling away in there and he wasn’t quite sure how to take it.”

When she isn’t surprising her husband, Peter reports that Jean keeps a close eye
on The Yorkshire Vet viewing figures and delights in the fan letters and packages sent from as far away as .

“We get oven gloves, coffee, biscuits, calendars, little kangaroo pouches, random stuff,” he says. “Jean loves it, she can’t wait to open a parcel – not knowing what is inside is a huge attraction for her.”

Peter thinks that fans, especially children, are particularly drawn to Jean and Steve because of their simple Yorkshire lifestyle, and that is what makes the show such a success.

“In the world they live in now, children have got their own mobile phones, they have computer games,” he says. “These two people are so detached from that type of life – children find it fascinating.”

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