Shropshire Star

Diamond couple celebrate with a gift to charity

Telford diamond couple Geoff and Maud Watkiss will be expecting no gifts as they hold a celebration of 60 married years tomorrow, Sunday, October 22 - they have asked for donations to the Midlands Air Ambulance instead.

Published
How the Wellington Journal & Shrewsbury News reported their marriage 60 years ago.

"We always like to give something to a charity and at Geoff's 80th birthday we raised money for Hope House children's hospice - we raised £1,400," said Maud.

Over 50 family and friends have been invited to tomorrow's Sunday lunch at the Pheasant pub at Admaston.

Their actual diamond wedding anniversary was on Thursday - October 19, the day they married at Wellington Parish Church in 1957. Geoff is now 85, and Maud is 81.

"We met at the weekly Saturday night dance at the Majestic dance hall in Wellington. He asked me to dance, and that's how it started."

Maud Cooper, as she was then, was only 16 and lived at Roseway, Wellington.

"I did not want to get married until I was 21. We had a little blip in between. We went out for 12 months, then had a little break, and then we got back together."

She was working for D W Agnew tailors.

"They were more or less opposite the parish church, right in the corner. Geoff worked for his father. They were coal merchants - Watkiss coal merchants based at Old Park.

"We live in Admaston. We've been here nearly 60 years, in the same house - we've never moved."

Maud gave up work soon after they wed, and Geoff has had several jobs. He had a fish and chip shop in Hadley and also worked as a Shropshire Star van driver.

The couple, who have two children and four grandchildren, spent the exact wedding anniversary on Thursday quietly, doing some shopping, and Geoff bought her a bouquet.

And that secret of a long and happy marriage?

"Being kind to one another, listening to each other's views, and not falling out over anything."