Diamond couple who met in Wigan cafe celebrate 60 years of marriage

Margaret and Ron Hepplestone met on October 8, 1959 in Ashton and love soon blossomed.

Ron, who lived in Warrington then, said: “One particular night, me and my friend had nothing do. I was a biker so we thought we would have a ride out somewhere and ended up riding to Ashton. We ended up at a cafe on Wigan Road.

"It was just one of those chance meetings. We went in and Margaret was there with a couple of her friends. We sat down and chatted with them and got quite friendly.

"I took her home on the motorbike, which was her first ride ever. She needed persuading – her friends kept persuading her to have a ride.

"We carried on meeting. There were no things like telephones then, so it was a matter of writing to each other in the old-fashioned way. We had a good connection and we had interests that were similar.”

They married on February 23, 1963 and have two children, a grandson and a great-granddaughter.

Ron initially worked as a postman and transferred to the post office engineers, before they emigrated to South Africa in 1976.

The family stayed there for seven years and Ron went to night school to study technical drawing, before working as a draughtsman in South Africa and back in the UK.

Margaret did a variety of jobs over the years, including in a bakery, weaving shed and in retail.

Ron, now 82 and living in Abram, said: “In our early days we used to go camping. We had all the gear on a trailer and towed behind.

"It was only when we came back from South Africa that we did European holidays – we hadn’t been on one before that. Our first one was to Yugoslavia. From then, we have been all over the place.”

The couple celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary with a tea party at Ashwood Residential Care Home in Ashton, where Margaret, 78, now lives.

And the secret to such a long marriage?

Ron said: “We didn’t go our different ways like some people do, we had a lot of interests together. Any problems, we sorted it out together.”