THREE of their four original bridesmaids got together with Jim and Eileen Burrows to help make the diamond wedding celebrations of the Clare couple an even greater day to remember.
The couple, both 85, of Cavendish Road, celebrated their 60th anniversary on Saturday by holding a lunch party with family and friends at their son David's home in Hundon.
Joining them were three of their four bridesmaids from the day they were ma
rried in Tolleshunt Major, Essex on May 8, 1948 – Eileen's sisters Doreen Holman, 78, and Jean Locke, 81, and Jim's cousin Ruby McColm, 84. The fourth bridesmaid, Jim's sister Joyce Price, was not well enough to attend.
The couple were introduced by Ruby during the Second World War when Eileen was posted with the Land Army – she received a British Empire Medal for her services to the movement – to Jim's home village of Little Totham, near Maldon, Essex.
Ruby's mum was also Eileen's landlady during her time in the village.
Although the couple knew each other for a while they didn't start dating until Jim, a joiner by trade, was demobbed from the Royal Navy in 1946, three-and-a-half years after he joined.
Eileen said: "I saw him quite a bit but he didn't want to know because he was waiting to come out of the navy."
After settling initially in Little Totham they built a house in Great Totham in 1954, where they lived until 1986 when Jim retired and they moved to Clare to be nearer the elder of their two sons, David, 56.
Jim and Eileen's younger son, Stephen, 54, now lives in Nebraska, USA. David and Stephen have two children each.
Of their long marriage, Jim said: "We've always worked together. If I was out mixing concrete, making a path or something, I wouldn't have asked her but she would be out there with a shovel helping me."
The full article contains 321 words and appears in Haverhill Echo newspaper.
