THERE will be a double celebration in a Bewdley neighbourhood where two couples who married just two miles away from each other on the same day will both celebrate their 50th wedding anniversaries.

Joyce, 68 and John, 72 Moody and Bill and Brenda Carr, of Hillcroft Caravan Park, Cleobury Road, will mark their milestones tomorrow.

The couples met five years ago when Mr and Mrs Carr moved to the Bewdley site and got chatting to their new neighbours - mentioning their wedding anniversary, realising they had married on the same day, two miles away from each other and now lived just yards apart.

Mr and Mrs Moody married at Darkhouse Baptist Chapel in Coseley and Mr and Mrs Carr tied the knot at Bilston Methodist Church, both on Jun 6, 1964.

To celebrate, Mr and Mrs Moody's son Jim will travel from Utah in America to join his parents and daughter Nikki for a meal before the couple "go off and enjoy ourselves for a couple of days, by jumping in the car and just going where the road takes us".

The husband and wife met in the early 1960s when Mr Moody was the assistant manager at Woolworths in Bilston and Mrs Moody was a trainee at the store.

Mr Moody said: "The plastic flowers had just come in and she was doing the flower arranging and I thought there is a nice lady. It was frowned upon because you were not supposed to go out with managers." The pair left Woolworths when the company proposed moving Mr Moody to the Grimsby store.

Mr and Mrs Moody enjoy travelling and have lived in France and Spain. Mrs Moody said the secret to their long marriage had been to "take everything day by day".

In Mr and Mrs Carr's case, the couple also met at work in 1958 when they were employees at a laboratory in Bilston where the team analysed metal.

Mr Carr said: "There was only about six or seven of us and we saw one another every day. After about 12 months or so we started going out with each other.

"We then got married and then had children - two girls Helen and Michelle. We like holidays and travelling abroad. I used to run for Tipton Harriers and Brenda came and supported me and stuff like that.

"We had a caravan in Bewdley since 1967. We were thinking of moving to Spain but loved it so much here we brought a bigger caravan and moved here.

"It was quite a surprise when we met Mr and Mrs Moody just a few hundred yards away and started talking about our anniversary and everything just started adding up."

Mr and Mrs Carr will celebrate by going for a family lunch at Moor Hall in Sutton Coldfield