Soham couple celebrate 70 years of marriage
WHEN Doug and Joyce Neaves married the country was a very different place from today.
The start of the Second World War was just five months away and couples faced being apart as men were called to fight for their country.
But the Soham couple overcame the trials war brought upon them and now 70 years later have celebrated their platinum wedding.
The couple, who live in Bluebell Walk, marked their anniversary on Good Friday with a special family lunch at the Rosery Hotel, Exning, on Saturday.
They first met as teenagers in 1935 during a trip to the Old Victoria cinema in Cambridge's Market Square.
"I was with a friend and she was with a friend," said Doug, 92.
"I kept trying to juggle around so I could sit next to her."
Four years later in 1939 the couple married at St Philip's Church, Cambridge, and spent one day in London as a honeymoon before Doug went back at work as a butcher's boy.
In 1940, Doug was called up and joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as an orderly, where he stayed for six years.
He was based near Norwich and West Wratting before being sent abroad and sailed half way around the world.
Two weeks after arriving in Singapore, Doug was captured by the Japanese and as held in Thailand as a PoW for three-and-a-half years.
After his release, he worked at a Cambridge-based company making medical instruments until he retired.
Joyce, 89, worked as a post office assistant when she first met her husband and later moved to telecom company Pye where she assembled radio sets.
She also worked at a laundry company and in the office of the former maternity hospital in Mill Road, which was her last job.
The couple moved to Soham from Cambridge in 1989 and have lived at their current home ever since.
They have two sons – Melvyn, 61, and Bryan, 53 – six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
Their eldest child Eileen died two years ago, aged 66.
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 Newmarket
Friday 25 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 12 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 22 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 12 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 20 mph
Wind direction: East
