Burgess Hill couple celebrate 60 years of marriage
DEVOTED Bill Speight still thinks the Land Girl he fell in love with is the cream of the crop after 60 years' marriage.
Bill, now 86, and wife Dot, 81, of Marten House, The Brow, Burgess Hill, are celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary today and their daughter Marilyn Sayers arranged a party at her home in Hurstpierpoint.
Leicestershire-born Dot was billeted at Brighton while working in the Land Army at Hole's Farm, Albourne, in the late 1940s.
Bill, originally from Yorkshire, was a few years into a 25-year career at the farm when he found himself surrounded by 20 girls.
Dot recalls: "He was taking out two of us, showing me and another girl from Derby around the area. Then he asked me on the quiet would I see him on the Sunday."
It was as well they shared a love of walks because a missed last bus on one date meant they walked from Devil's Dyke to Brighton.
Romance led to marriage in 1949 at Derby, where Dot's family lived.
The newlyweds started married life in a cottage at Albourne, later raising Marilyn and a son John. They are now enjoying watching the progress of three grandchildren and great-granddaughter Daisy.
When Bill left farming he worked until retirement organising more than 20 milk rounds for the old Hole and Davigdor firm after only a brief spell on a round, and Dot worked for about ten years at Boots in Burgess Hill.
Bill said of the fates that brought him and Dot together: "I lost my dad when I was six and later my stepfather gave my mum a choice of staying in Yorkshire or moving to Sussex. I am glad she did move here, because that's how I met my wife."
Cream of the crop for the young farmhand then?
Bill laughed and said: "Well, I thought so. Yes, Dot must have been, because we have been married 60 years."
Dot summed up the secret by saying: "After all these years we still care a lot for each other."
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Chichester
Monday 28 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 13 C to 20 C
Wind Speed: 29 mph
Wind direction: West
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 12 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: West
