A COUPLE married on the groom's birthday celebrated their diamond anniversary.

Stella and David Taylor met through their involvement in church activities as both their dads were methodist preachers.

Stella was born in Royal Wootton Bassett and David in nearby Grittenham.

Years later romance blossomed after David, who was completing National Service at RAF Colerne but living at home, began giving her a lift from Wootton Bassett to Chippenham railway station because she was studying physiotherapy at Bath.

Stella remembers her excitement when David asked her to the cinema in Swindon to see A Tale of Two Cities.

The two were engaged in July 1959 and married at Hillside Methodist Church in Wootton Bassett on 29 August 1960, the groom's 22nd birthday.

Stella said: "It does mean he's never forgotten the date of our anniversary."

Theirs was a memorable wedding for those attending in that it took place at 8am on a Monday morning – matching the time when the couple had travelled together to Chippenham railway station, and giving them plenty of time to travel to their honeymoon in St Ives later that day.

"We did have guests joking that we'd be giving them cornflakes for the wedding breakfast," said David.

Illness cut short Stella's studies in Bath and instead she embraced an opportunity to start writing local news reports for the Gazette and Herald and Swindon Advertiser.

This is something she has continued to do for more than 60 years and she has been present, with her notebook and pen, at most key events and activities in the town during that time.

Her 'Window on Wootton Bassett' column was a regular fixture in the Gazette across at least three decades.

Alongside her newspaper work, Stella was one of the founders of Wootton Bassett's Community magazine in 1971 and has been editor ever since.

The couple's first home together was near Coped Hall, in a new house built near what later became the Jubilee Lake. Having completed National Service, David concentrated on his chicken egg farming business.

A move in 1975 took them a mile or so down the road, next door to David's mother on Brinkworth Road, and he began a new career in the building trade that he continued to retirement. An early project was building the family home, The Meadows, where David and Stella still live.

They have four children, six grandchildren and a great granddaughter.

The couple celebrated their 60 years of marriage with a small family party that included a screening of colour cine film footage of their wedding, captured on that day in August 1960 by Stella's cousin.