A WESTBURY couple are celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary after 60 years of married life together.
Bert and Lily Carter were married at Dilton Marsh Church on January 21st 1950. They met when Bert was delivering bread around the village for the Co-op, and Lily was cutting the grass outside her parents’ home.
Lily, 80, said, “The man who delivered the bread before Bert was a stately gentleman. When Bert started, he set the village on fire!”
Bert, 87, said, “I used to talk to all the girls delivering bread around the village. I asked her about four or five times ‘Go out with me tomorrow?’ She told a friend of hers who said, ‘If he asked me I should say ‘yes’ and the next time I asked she did say yes. We went to Westbury pictures.”
Lily said of her wedding day, “It was a cold and dry day and we had a small wedding. Rationing was still on then, the war wasn’t long ended, it was a different life to now.”
Since their wedding the couple have always lived locally, and now have four children, four grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. The couple celebrated their 60 year milestone with an afternoon tea at Dilton Marsh Memorial Hall, before jetting off to the caribbean for a cruise.
During the course of their marriage the couple have always taken a holiday once a year without fail. Lily said, “We’ve had some lovely times. When the children were younger we always took simple holidays in England.”
Over the course of the years they’ve seen much of the world, including Egypt, much of Europe and repeated trips to Tanzania where one of their daughters lives.
Both Lily and Bert said that the secret of a happy marriage was making concessions for each other.
Bert said, “The most important thing is give and take, we haven’t always seen eye to eye and we’re had our ups and downs, but you have to give and take.”
Lily added, “I’m eight years younger than Bert and when I married I had a lot to learn, I didn’t know it all. You have to work at a marriage. In my opinion you must have an interest or a hobby.”
