Golden couple celebrate in Weymouth (From Thisisdorset)

Golden couple celebrate in Weymouth

1:00pm Monday 22nd March 2010 in

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GOLDEN couple Stanley and Virginia Nyas celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary by remembering how it was love at first sight.

Stanley, 84, went to visit Virginia, 73, at Danmor Lodge Residential Care Home in Alexandra Road, Weymouth, as he does every day.

Staff helped to make the day extra special as the couple enjoyed a surprise party with a gold, heart-shaped cake and gold balloons at dinner.

Stanley and Virginia met during Christmas in 1959 and after just two meetings decided to wed and were married three months later.

Virginia still remembers meeting for the first time.

“I said it could be the start of something big and it was,” she said. “We were writing to one another because we only met at Christmas and we were married in March. After two meetings he had made up his mind. That was it.”

Both Stanley and Virginia’s parents worked for the Enter-tainments National Service Association (Ensa), entertaining the troops during the Second World War.

They became friends and introduced the couple at a Christmas get-together in Cromer, Norfolk, where Virginia’s family lived – Stanley’s family visiting from Derby. The golden couple have spent much of their married life living in Feltham, Middlesex, where Stanley worked making beer barrels and Virginia was first a carer and then made watches.

Stanley said: “I’d love to have another 50 years together. I love it here in Dorset.”

They have two daughters. Mary Bryant, 46, lives in Kent, and Stanley lives with their first daughter Lillian Hinton, 49, and his son-in-law Stewart Hinton in Crispins Close, Wyke Regis.

Lillian and Stewart also arrived at Danmor Lodge for a surprise visit.

She said: “ I could not wish for better parents. I hope we last as long together and are just as happy as these two. We’ve only got 45 years to go.”

Virginia now uses a wheelchair and has lived at Danmor Lodge for a year.

She said: “We’ve hardly ever argued and when we did it was all minutes. My grandma said life is too short to quarrel.”