Couple celebrate 60 years of wedding bliss

Peter and Pat Carrington, of Linden Gardens, Hedge End, will be joined by friends and family as they celebrate their diamond wedding.

The couple met as teenagers at school but it wasn’t until Peter returned from National Service in Singapore working as a baker in the Royal Army Service Corps in 1950 that the two started dating.

Peter, 84, said: “It just seemed the natural thing to do. We didn’t think much about it, the relationship just matured, it was inevitable that we were going to get married.

It was obviously the right thing to do.”

The couple married in Gravesend in 1954, moving to Southampton in 1969 due to Peter’s work as a salesman for comm e r c i a l l a u n d r y c o m p a n y Anglo West.

They settled in Hedge End and have three children – Stephanie, M i c h a e l and Sarah – and seven grandchildren.

After retiring Peter became a school governor at Freegrounds Infant School in Hobb Lane for 12 years before stepping down last month.

Pat, 82, who studied design at St Martin’s School of Art in London, continues her business repairing and altering clothes from their home.

For both of them they believe that the secret to a long-lasting marriage is to “not let the sun go down on an argument”.

Pat said: “If you have any arguments get it over with and then forget it. It’s best to have things like that in the open and get it done.”