Newbury couple celebrate 70 years of wedded bliss

A couple from Speen have celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary.

Eric and Doreen Scott, who live in Battle Close, tied the knot on April 11, 1955, at St John’s Church in Stockcross when Mrs Scott was just 17 and her bridegroom was 20.

And they have supported one another in sickness and in health ever since.

Mr Scott, 90, originally from Kent, enjoyed a varied career, first as a stonemason then as a HGV driver and engineer, while Mrs Scott, 90, from Stockcross, worked at Newbury Natural Therapy Practice.

Speaking about how they plan to celebrate the milestone, Mrs Scott said: “Our daughter’s doing something for us. She only lives just round the corner.

“We don’t know where. It's a surprise. She’ll just whisk us off.

“She’s a busy girl, but she looks after us 100 per cent.”

The couple met in the early 1950s at The Forum Cinema in Park Way.

Mrs Scott continued: “He lived at Marsh Benham at the time. I went to the pictures.

“I sat right down in the front. And my friend’s aunt walked in and asked to sit with me.

“Then I happened to turn around and Eric was sat up at the back. I only knew him slightly.

“He waved and said, ‘come up’. I did and he asked, ‘would you like to sit with me?’

“I said, ‘well, I just said that Aunty Lorna can sit there’. I was going to apologise but he said, ‘don’t bring her up as well.”

He saw her back home on the bus that night and it all continued from there.

Mrs Scott’s parents adored Eric, who she said became the son they never had.

They moved into a flat in Battle Close three years after they married before moving to their current bungalow.

Sharing some relationship wisdom they have picked up over the last 70 years, Mr Scott said: “You always have tiffs in any marriage. But we say live for the day, don’t worry about tomorrow.”

Mrs Scott added: “One other great thing in this household is everything's 50-50. We don’t fight over anything.

“We enjoy life. We get about as much as we can.”

The couple have two grown-up grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.