A ‘DIAMOND’ Stourbridge couple are celebrating 60 years of marriage – after proving wrong everyone who said their union wouldn’t last!

Godfrey and Jill Perry were married in Wordsley on June 14, 1958, four years after they first met at their local Methodist church.

The couple reached their landmark 60th wedding anniversary last week, continuing to defy their doubters from long ago.

Mr Perry, 85, said: “Everybody we knew in the church back then said it wouldn’t last – and we have proven them all wrong!

“We’ve had a very successful marriage and we’ve pulled together – that’s the difference today. You can’t have everything all at once.”

The couple, who live in Pedmore, met in 1954, soon after Godfrey, a carpenter by trade for much of his life, had returned from three years serving in the RAF.

While helping out at the local church youth club, he was asked to chaperone some girls home after their usual lift – the organist – had been called away to a family emergency.

Godfrey recalls: “He had asked me to get the girls home safely because there had been two murders not long before.

“I had been to school with Jill’s sister so our families knew each other. We struck up an acquaintance and eventually got married.”

The couple, who have lived in Stourbridge all of their lives, have two children – daughter Vicky Conway, 44, and son Christopher Perry, 48 – and one grandchild, Tristan, 5.

And while there was no shortage of celebrations for the Perrys, Jill, 78, said the most special part of the anniversary was receiving the telegram from the Queen.

Jill, who worked as a shorthand typist, PA and secretary for the tax service and later the NHS, added: “It was absolutely lovely to receive the telegram – I was overwhelmed with it.

“There was a really lovely verse inside and the Queen was smiling on the front of the card – you don’t see her smiling very often nowadays!”