An Okehampton couple celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary on Monday (August 15) with friends, family and a card from the Queen.

Mike and Audrey Curtice celebrated their milestone anniversary, which included a special coffee morning and a card from the Queen, having been married 60 years ago in 1962.

Looking back at their long and happy marriage, Audrey said: ‘This morning I said “60 years - it’s an awful long time” and we have never had a major row.’

The couple’s celebrations stated several days before August 15 with a coffee morning at the Fairplace Methodist Church where they received a surprise visit from their daughter, and a three-tiered wedding cake to the amazement of the couple who said they could not imagine how difficult it must have been to transport the cake in such heat.

Mike and Audrey, from Fairy Cross, near Bideford and Zeal Monachorum respectively, have known one another since their school years when Mike said he used to see Audrey at the school bus stop, but it was not until years later that they re-connected. At the time, Audrey, a nurse by profession, was caring for Mike’s sister in hospital.

Audrey said: ‘I was nursing his sister and she arranged for me to have a lift home. Mike was doing National Service at the time but thought he knew more about nursing than me. We argued from Exeter to North Devon.’

Despite this, they hit it off and started dating, though they had to ensure dates ended before 10 o’clock otherwise Audrey, who was living in the hospital’s nursing quarters at the time, would be locked out of the building.

‘You could climb through the laundry room to get back in though. I only had to do that once and that was nothing to do with Mike,’ Audrey added with a smile.

Mike, who worked at the Lloyds bank in Okehampton, described how they ‘cheated’ and got married a month before his 25th birthday, even though the bank’s regulations stated that employees could only get married if they were over 25 years of age.

Sixty years, two children, several grandchildren and a pandemic later, Mike and Audrey are still together and as happy as ever.

Mike said: ‘At the start of lockdown, I really did wonder how we were going to cope because we had never been together all the time. I can’t really say we enjoyed lockdown, but we had a lot of fun. We tease each other and laugh at ourselves.’

Though neither were born in Okehampton, the couple have spent many years in the town and the surrounding area - the couple’s son was born in Chagford and both their son and daughter attended Okehampton’s primary and secondary school.

Today, both Mike and Audrey enjoy attending the Fairplace Methodist Church meetings and getting involved with the church’s charity shop.

Mike said: I don’t think we do any more than anyone else. We got involved when the children were small. We’re not Bible bashers but it’s just a lovely friendly set up and lovely people there. It has been a part of our lives that we really enjoy.

‘We had the coffee morning to do with the wedding anniversary but in the end we could do little for it - they did it all for us. It was a lovely morning.’

Mike and Audrey can count themselves among the few who have celebrated a diamond wedding anniversary which includes the Queen and Prince Philip who celebrated theirs in 2007.