A LOVING Stourport couple are marking 60 happily married years together with a celebratory cruise in Europe.

Norman Gilliver, aged 83, and his 81-year-old wife Evelyn have reached the diamond landmark today (August 2) and are celebrating it in style on a cruise ship travelling to St Petersburg, via the Baltics.

The Stourport rotary club members were married at St James Church in their native village of Newbold Verdon in Leicestershire on August 2 in 1958, having met at a dance a few years before when they were teenagers.

The couple moved to Areley Kings in Stourport in 1968, after Mr Gilliver got a job in Halesowen with British Steel. After he was made redundant from there after 30 years, he got a job with the Kidderminster Chamber of Commerce before retiring 18 years ago.

Mrs Gilliver worked in a foundry prior to them moving to Stourport, where she brought up her family. The couple have two sons and a daughter and six grandchildren.

Mr Gilliver said they have a number of shared interests including bowling, allotment gardening and being involved in the town twinning initiative.

He said: “We never argued and we still don’t. My wife says that what’s mine is hers and what’s hers is hers and I agree!”