SIXTY years seems like a lifetime but a Fearnhead couple celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary today can remember their honeymoon perfectly.

Keith Durrington, 81, teased his wife Eleanor that she only took £1 with her when they left for their honeymoon on the Isle of Man.

The happy couple met at the Mountain Dew pub in Atherton in 1953, when Keith was on leave from the army after serving in Egypt.

Seventeen-year-old Eleanor fell in love with the 19-year-old soldier but he had to return to service in Germany.

The pair eventually married in 1956 at St Thomas’s Church in Leigh after Keith left the army.

Eleanor said: “I lived above a chip shop in Leigh and my mum made the wedding cake and we had the reception in the dining room.

“We took a taxi and then flew to the Isle of Man. I took only a pound with me but it was all I had! We had a whale of a time.

“Keith has looked after me a lot.”

“I had to, your mother told me so!” said Keith.

After leaving the army, he became a lorry driver and the couple had seven children who they raised at their home in Glazebury and then Longbarn.

The pair now have 14 grandchildren and 15 great grandchildren and said they have always loved having a big family.

Keith said: “It’s important for everybody to look after one another.

“I would say to young couples, just enjoy yourselves and work for each other. We shared responsibilities, sometimes I cooked and sometimes she did. And have lots of holidays.”

He said that he has especially enjoyed the chance to travel to lots of different places with the family.

Eleanor said: “Don’t give up on it. We have never come to blows on anything.”

The couple celebrated their golden wedding anniversary ten years ago by renewing their vows at the church where they were married.

This year, they held a big party for their friends and family to mark sixty years of happy marriage.