SHARED hobbies helped to build the foundations of a long and happy marriage for a Golcar couple.
Geoffrey and Jean Halstead, of Westwood Edge, Bolster Moor, have just celebrated their golden wedding.
Mr Halstead, aged 72, was born and raised in Huddersfield.
He was a Hillhouse Central School pupil and left at 14 to become an apprentice motor mechanic in Lockwood.
Later, he joined the railways, where he worked as a cleaner, fireman and driver for 40 years.
His wife, 71, was born in County Durham and grew up in Bradford, studying at Grange High School.
At 17, she trained as a nurse in Huddersfield.
She and her husband-to-be met at a Christmas dance.
They were married at Buttershaw in Bradford.
The couple have two children, Tracey-Lynne and Jamie, and three grandchildren.
They lived at Longwood after getting married, then moved to Holmfirth, where Mrs Halstead became district nurse in 1955.
She and her husband bred Shetland sheepdogs. Later they took up morris dancing and joined the Slubbing Billys.
In his youth, Mr Halstead was a keen cross-country motor- cyclist.
