Last updated at 21:24, Thursday, 08 April 2010

A SEATON couple celebrated their diamond wedding yesterday in the house in which they met.

DIAMOND COUPLE: Seaton couple Eric and Ethel Fisher have celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary

Eric and Ethel Fisher, both 80, have lived in Main Street for most of their married life. Eric grew up there, as did his father and his grandparents.

“There have been Fishers in this house since it was built and I sleep now in the bedroom in which I was born,” he said.

They met when Ethel, then Ethel Benson, who was from a Flimby farm, delivered milk to the local villages.

“I used to stop at this house,” she said.

“One day I sat too long and Eric came in.”

That was that as far as he was concerned and the couple were married at St Paul’s Church in Seaton on April 8, 1950, on a wet, windy day.

They went on honeymoon to Morecambe on Eric’s motor bike and Ethel said it felt like the other end of the world.

When their son Ronnie was born the couple bought a sidecar but they only used it once.

“I was so scared he would forget he had it on and try to drive between two buses that we never used it again,” said Ethel.

Eric worked as a joiner for British Rail for 40 years but was forced into early retirement in his 50s when a warehouse roof caved in leaving him with a permanently broken ankle.

Ethel is known throughout Cumbria for her promotion of the Cumbrian dialect and the books and poems she has written.

She is also an MBE for services to the community through her involvement with organisations including WI, Mothers’ Union and Seaton Choir.

The couple moved out of the family home shortly after marrying and lived in Jackson Street for 18 years until Eric’s parents became ill and they returned home.

Eric kept pigeons at his family at Main Street throughout that time and when he gave them up he had show-winning budgies and canaries.

He is also a keen wood turner.

Ethel said the secret to a happy marriage was to “close your eyes to his bad points and open your ears to his troubles.”

Eric added: “Learn to say ‘yes dear’. But seriously, it is about give and take. If she came delivering milk now I would do it all again.”

First published at 19:29, Thursday, 08 April 2010
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk