Anniversary: Barbara and John Taylor to celebrate golden wedding anniversary on 1 April

John and Barbara Taylor

Barbara and John Taylor, both from Norden, are set to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary after 50 years of marriage on 1 April, and they’re still as in love as the day they got married.

Their secret?

Mrs Taylor said: “He’s my friend. He’s good and I enjoy his company.

“We’re not together 24/7 though. We do things like have lovely meals together, you don’t have to go out. We go swimming together.”

Barbara was 17 when she met John, now 72, at The Limit, a disco on Wood Street in Middleton.

The couple were married at All Saints and Martyrs Church in Langley on 1 April 1967. Barbara was walked down the aisle by her father, for what she describes as ‘a white wedding with a lovely dress’, although she changed into a blue two-piece suit for the reception at Langley Labour Club.

Barbara and John on their wedding day

Mrs Taylor laughed: “We married in the afternoon at three o’clock, so he wouldn’t be a fool. Everyone who married before the 5 April received a full years’ income tax back, which was a lot of money at the time. We didn’t marry for the money though; we were so in love.”

“I never thought we’d be celebrating 50 years of marriage, and we’re both in good health too. I’d like to make it to 100.”

She continued: “There’s this verse about boarding the train and meeting your parents. It goes through the stations and your children get on the train, your parents get off the train, other people get off. Some people might get off and you don’t notice it. I’d like us to get off the train together; I wouldn’t like to live without John.”

The mother-of-three continued to reminisce about their wedding day.

“We didn’t live together before the wedding. On the day, I left my mother’s house in Langley to go to the church and John left his mother’s in Cheetham Hill. I remember waking up the morning after the wedding with John, and he made me breakfast and burned the grill,” Barbara remembers fondly.

Barbara with her father on her wedding day

Mr and Mrs Taylor lived in Manchester until they moved to Norden in 1970, where they have lived ever since, raising three children, David, now 35, Jacqueline, now 46 and Michael, now 44. They have seven grandchildren ranging from seven months to 26 years of age.

Mrs Taylor added: “We didn’t have a honeymoon because we couldn’t afford it. We paid for the wedding ourselves, we stayed in the house we lived in and we went to Blackpool in John’s dad’s car. I think I fell in love with him because he could drive, as not many young lads could in 1967.”

However, the blissfully-married couple have more than made up for it since, having travelled all across the world since then.

The couple will be celebrating both their golden wedding anniversary and Barbara’s approaching 70th birthday with a holiday in Valencia.

When asked what advice she’d give others, Mrs Taylor said: “Enjoy yourself, go out. Book that trip. Go on those holidays. Don’t sit on the settee and wait for life to come to you.”