New Mills sapphire couple celebrate 65 years of marriage

A New Mills couple have celebrated 65 years of marriage with a meal attended by close family.

Ken and Anne Stores met while queueing for a show at Stockport’s Theatre Royal in 1951.

Anne, 83, told how Ken, 85, was visiting her native town with friends from New Mills when the pair struck up conversation.

They spent the next few years dating - taking turns visiting each other before marrying at Stockport’s St Joseph’s Catholic Church on March 20, 1954.

After a quiet ceremony followed by a reception at a pub in the town they had a week-long honeymoon in Blackpool.

Curiously, their first two marital homes in New Mills were condemned - the first due to a cracked wall and the second because it was ‘slipping away into the river’.

After a living in a council house on Roundway for ten years they bought an ex-council house on the same road for £1,500 - where they still live to this day.

The pair retired from full-time work aged 65 but both continued to work part-time - with Ken finally giving up completely just three years ago aged 82.

Ken and Anne have three children, Nigel, 62, Diane, 48 and Martin, 51, two grandchildren and three great grandchildren.

Anne said the secret to a long and happy marriage was ‘lots of bickering’ and always staying together’.