Diamond Wedding: Bo'ness husband and wife celebrating 60 years of happy marriage

Len and Margaret Bennett, née Bain, will mark their Diamond Wedding on Thursday, October 28 with a celebratory lunch at The Corbie Inn.

The duo, who are both 80, began their celebrations in September when they visited Donegal on a coach tour.

Bo’ness man Len met his future wife through “church circles” and a mutual friend in 1958.

Len and Margaret, who’s from Edinburgh, married three years later in Leith.

The former started his working life as the first of three apprentices at the old BHC in instrumentation.

He then joined BP, where he remained for ten years, and spent another decade employed in “travelling jobs round about”. Len also spent time in the instrument electric side of a pulp mill in Fort William, where he and his wife lived for four years.

Len eventually returned to BP and retired in his mid-50s.

He was also an ordained pastor in Bo’ness who managed to split his time between churches in Falkirk district, Edinburgh and Musselburgh.

Margaret, meanwhile, found work as a shop assistant before marriage.

Aged 34, she went into nursing and trained at what’s now Falkirk Community Hospital. Margaret later secured a role as a warden in a sheltered housing complex in Bo’ness, a job she held for 12 years.

The Bennetts, who live in Erngath Road, became parents when their son, Keith, now 58, was born.

Daughter Fiona followed five years later when the family lived in Fort William.

While the couple don’t have grandchildren, they have “plenty of step-grandchildren” who they enjoy spending time with.

The pair also have their own hobbies, with Len a self-confessed bookworm and Margaret an avid knitter, sewer and gardener.

Trips to Niagara Falls in Canada, Machu Picchu in Peru and Israel throw up fond memories for both.

Revealing their secret to a successful marriage, Margaret said: “It’s really just give and take, marriage isn’t all one-sided.

“We’ve been Christian all our lives and always lived by that principle, and tried to set an example to others.”

Len said: “I’ll go along with what she’s said.

“I always do!”

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