A WALLINGFORD couple will return to the scene of their honeymoon this week in a nostalgic plan to celebrate their Diamond wedding anniversary.

Shirley and Edward Woodgate will go back to Bournemouth tomorrow, 60 years to the day after they married in St Mary’s Church in Cholsey.

Now proud grandparents, the Woodgates’ commitment seems to run in the family, with their three daughters – Julia, Sharon and Mandy – all happily married for more than 20 years.

Mr and Mrs Woodgate, aged 81 and 79, are taking their three daughters - who have five grandchildren between them, one of whom was married this year - to Warners at Littlecote to mark the occasion.

The pair first met in Wallingford in 1955 and were married three years later, only for Mr Woodgate to be sent to Cyprus with the armed forces two weeks after their wedding.

Reflecting on six decades, Mr Woodgate said the secret to a happy marriage was being ‘willing to forgive and forget’ and added: “We enjoy similar things but also have our own activities and interests.”

Mrs Woodgate also told the Herald she wanted to pay tribute to paramedics who saved her life after a heart attack in November last year, without whom she would not have been alive to celebrate the event.