Factory romance brought diamond couple together
Last updated 19:55, Thursday, 06 November 2008
A MARYPORT couple celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary yesterday.
Violet and Norman Thursby, of Buttermere Road, have been married for 60 years, but Mrs Thursby said that it had not always been easy.
Mr Thursby, 78, has had several strokes and twice his heart has stopped while in Whitehaven’s West Cumberland Hospital.
Mrs Thursby said: “It has been hard for us but Norman is a strong man and he has pulled through every time. I am lucky to still have him but he is always there for me.”
The pair met when they were both working in Grasslot’s Bata shoe factory.
Mrs Thursby remembers her first words to her future husband.
“I asked him if he had a weak eye,” she said.
“Norman was working on the other side of the room from me and every time I looked over he was staring at me and winking.
“The following night I was going to the cinema and one of my friends asked me to move along one. When I looked up Norman was there. He had followed me to the cinema.”
After an 11-month courtship, the couple got married in Cockermouth’s register office.
Mr Thursby was a corporal in the Royal Pioneer Corps for two-and-a-half years, and was stationed all over Britain, including Aldershot and Catterick.
The couple have seven children, 17 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.
Over the years, they have shared darts and dominoes as hobbies.
