Announcements

A couple, who were drawn together at a dance and brought three generations to a Chessington church, have celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary.

Fred, 84, and Rose Griffiths, 82, received a card from the Queen and held a party for family at Amy Woodgate House in Nigel Fisher Way on June 22.

Mr Griffiths said: “It was a great success, bringing together family members from three different counties.

"Feelings of nostalgia were running high as no one refrained from the gathering.”

The couple had met as teenagers at a dance hall in the Broadway, Tolworth.

Mr Griffiths said: “She was the one who sat in the corner quietly. We just got brought together.

"I suppose a kind of magnetism was there, and we never separated.”

They were married at St Mary’s Church in Chessington on June 20, 1953. Their two children, a son and a daughter, were also christened and married there.

Mr Griffiths said: “More than anything I remember the fact that we got married and I thought ‘this is lovely because we get to spend the rest of our lives together’.”

The family lived in Largewood Avenue, where Mr Griffiths had lived since he was 10 months old.

He lives there now, while his wife is staying at Amy Woodgate House.

Mr Griffiths said: “We have had shortages of cash and problems like everybody else, but just being together was enough for us.

"We had holidays always together. We used to drive down to Cornwall and all over the place as a family.”

Lindsey Putt, deputy residential manager at Amy Woodgate, said: “He is very devoted to her and she, I believe, is still very devoted to him.

"He comes to visit her every day when he is well.”