COLEFORD couple Rita and Reg Marshall celebrated 60 years of marriage with a quiet evening meal.

Despite having one daughter, two grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, the couple kept their diamond wedding celebrations on Saturday, April 4 to a minimum.

Reg, 83, and his wife, 81, who live at Kingsmead, held a party at Bells Hotel in Coleford the week before where family and friends gathered to reminisce.

Reg said: "Our anniversary date itself was quiet which was lovely. We organised a party a week before so people could come along before the Easter Bank Holiday. We had a lovely time."

The teenage lovebirds met in Monmouth where Rita was from. Reg came from Staunton-on-the Wye near Hereford.

He said: "I was 18 and Rita was 16. I was at the age where I was called to do National Service and so I went into the army in Egypt. We conversed by letter for two years and when I came back we became 'official' and the rest, as they say, is history.

"We married in 1955 at All Saints Church in Newland – just up the road from where Rita lived with her family. We then moved to Berry Hill, where we lived for 17 years, and then to Sling. We have lived at Kingsmead for 12 years."