TEENAGE sweethearts Kenneth Hird and Marion Spencer were told by their parents they couldn’t marry until they were both 21.
After four years together, and unable to wait any longer, the couple tied the knot the day after Kenneth’s 21st birthday.
Fifty years later, Mr and Mrs Hird, of Hall Cross Road in Lowerhouses, have celebrated their golden wedding.
Asked the secret to a successful marriage, Mrs Hird said: “Getting to know each other before you walk down the aisle.”
Mrs Hird was born in Bradford and Mr Hird in Denholme near Bradford.
They met at Denholme Primary School and went to the same secondary school.
After getting engaged at 19, they had a two-year wait before their wedding at St Paul’s Church in Denholme on October 3 1959.
They moved to Netherthong in 1978 to take over a newsagents in Towngate, which they ran until 1987, when they moved to Lowerhouses.
Mrs Hird was an office worker and Mr Hird worked for the health authority before they retired.
The couple, both 71, went on a two-week cruise in the Baltics to celebrate their 50th anniversary and had a blessing at sea off Tallinn, Estonia. They have two children, Hazel, 40, and Wayne, 37, and a grand-daughter Hannah Louise, 14.
