A BROTHER and sister who married their spouses on the same day at the same church before sharing a joint honeymoon will today toast 50 years of sticking together.

Stewart Barnes and his sister Pat got hitched to their respective other halves at St Michael and All Angels Church in Lonsdale Road, Summertown, Oxford, exactly half a century ago.

Today, the couples are still together and have fond memories of the double wedding.

Mr Barnes, 73, of Gentian Road, Blackbird Leys, fell in love with his bride to be, Jean Hynes, after the pair exchanged glances over a row of slot machines while on holiday in Margate.

His sister met her future husband, John Morris, after wolf-whistling at him outside Osberton Radiators on the Woodstock Road, Oxford, where they both worked.

Mrs Morris, 70, said: “Me and my husband decided to get married and my brother said ‘we might as well get married, too’.

“The main thing I can remember about the day was it was bloody cold.

“The reception was a joint one at Cutteslowe Community Centre and we shared the honeymoon as well.

“We all went to Butlins in Margate for two weeks.”

Mr Barnes, who worked at Pressed Steel in Cowley for 21 years, said his sister even had a helping hand in finding his future wife.

He said: “My sister went down for holiday in Margate and said there was a spare room if I wanted to come.

“We were there over a weekend and I went and played on the slot machines, which is where I met Jean.

“We were both just playing on the machines and we got talking.

“She was down from Dagenham, so we were spending a fortune on telephone calls every Tuesday and Thursday.

“I’d go up there every three or four weekends. We were going to move to London but she came to live with me in Oxford in August 1958 and we’ve stayed here ever since.”

The couple’s first of three children was born in 1961 and they now have seven grandchildren.

Asked what the secret to a long marriage is, Mrs Barnes, 68, replied: “It’s all about give and take, and you shouldn’t go to bed on an argument.”

Her husband added: “Like all families you have ups and downs, but we’ve mostly just been a happy couple.”

Remembering her first sight of her husband to be, Mrs Morris said: “We were both working at Osberton Radiators on the Woodstock Road.

“He came out of the hospital and I whistled at him from over the road.

“It wasn’t love at first sight, but after a few dates it was.”

Mrs Morris went on to work at the John Radcliffe Hospital and her husband became employed at Horspath Service Station, where he still works at the age of 73.

The pair, of Millers Acre, Cutteslowe, have four children, 14 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

“We are a close family,” said Mrs Morris, “They’re all still around Oxford and we see each other quite a lot.”

She added: “I don’t really know what the secret to a long marriage is.

“You just have to share everything and if you have any problems you have to talk them through, you can’t argue.”

tairs@oxfordmail.co.uk