Sixty years of marriage for Ponetfract couple

Ken Millar was just 16 when his future wife Molly, who was 14 at the time, watched him painting the house opposite where she lived in Pontefract.

But it was not until several years later and after Ken’s National Service at the Suez Canal in Egypt that they were to meet again.

Mr Millar, 82, said: “She was sat on the pavement watching me painting. Then we didn’t see each other until I was in my 20s.

“I came out of National Service and a friend of mine was saying there’s this lady Molly who went to this place for dancing on a Saturday night.

“I recognised her straight away and she did me. It was love at first sight.”

Mrs Millar, 81, said: “A few years had passed and I was at this dance. All the young ones went there.

“We knew each other by sight. I never forgot him. I remember him walking in the room and he came up and asked me for the next dance.”

The couple, began courting and were married at All Saints Church on March 17, 1956.

They had a son, Clive, 59, and now have three grandchildren and three great grand children.

Mr Millar worked at Ferrybridge Power Station, while Mrs Millar trained to be a hairdresser before being employed at her brother Peter’s wallpaper and paint shop in Pontefract.

The couple, who have lived at the same house on Back Northgate, Pontefract, for more than 50 years, will celebrate their milestone with a family meal on Sunday.

When asked the secret to a happy marriage Mrs Millar said: “We have had a lot of luck and been very fortunate with the family.

“I can’t imagine ever having been married to anybody else.”