SPARKLING couple Jim and Beryl Moore will celebrate their 65th wedding anniversary on July 22.

Mr Moore, 90, of Silbury Road, met his wife in the printing department of the former Harris’ factory in Calne, where they both worked in 1947. He had just completed four years with the Royal Air Force and on his return to the Calne factory met Beryl, who was working in the same department. Their first date was a walk across the fields to Black Dog then on to a dance.

Mrs Moore, 85, had begun in printing in 1943, aged just 14, and was there for nine years. She left to have the children before returning part time for a few more years.

Three years after meeting, in 1950, they were married to the sounds of a terrific thunderstorm in the Parish Church of St Mary’s in Calne before spending their honeymoon in Paignton.

The couple settled and have continued to live in Calne all their lives. They have a single son, David, and daughter, Anne, and are blessed with three grandchildren and five great grandchildren.

Daughter Anne Rumming said: “Dad is very proud that he has reached the age of ninety and a half, it must have been all that good home cooking.

“They put their long and happy marriage down to always being together, looking after one another and sharing their lives with their family and friends.

“They are both keen knitters and last year for a few months leading up to Christmas they made about 25 hedgehogs and an owl from tinsel wool.”

Mr Moore was chairman of the Calne Sixty Plus Club, which closed in 2012, for a number of years with help from his wife and daughter. He and his wife still attend the Monday Club at the Calne Methodist Church and the Handicapped Club on a Tuesday.