Team work key to married bliss say Black Country couple as they reach anniversary milestone

Melvyn, 89, and Anne, 82, Thomas, who are originally from Wales, will be celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary on August 27 with a meal with friends this weekend.

Mel, who is originally from the Gower Peninsula near Swansea, and Anne, from near Aberystwyth, met while both teaching at The Cape Primary School in Smethwick in 1956.

Mel said: "We were both in the education service on the same staff and served under the Smethwick area throughout our careers.

"As we were both Welsh we just hit it off from the word go in that sense, that has been the way it has been all the way through.

"We have had a marriage made in heaven."

Mel later became a headteacher at Waterloo Primary School, which then became Shireland Hall Primary School in the 1970s, he later retired in 1992 and Anne retired in 1975.

The couple got married in 1960 at a traditional, small Welsh Mountain chapel in central Wales.

Mel said: "It was the wedding of the year at that chapel, partly because it was the only wedding held at that chapel that year!

"It was a very small typical Welsh country chapel.

"With the money we would have spent on a honeymoon we invested in a house in Quinton."

The couple had two sons, Jeremy and Timothy and two grandchildren, Daisy-May aged 11 and Rhys aged eight.

The pair believe secret to a long marriage is team work, Mel added: "From the very beginning we have been a team and it has always been that way, we always support each other."

Despite the couple describing the Black Country as their 'second home', the couple continued to stay true to their roots and were part of the Canoldir Choir in Birmingham, which was part of the Welsh Rugby Club, and still regularly check in with family and friends in their home villages.