A HAPPY couple are today celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.

Alan Coyle and his wife, Julie, both 70, first met in the Lendal Bridge pub, now known as The Maltings, in 1965 and married two years’ later.

In the mid-1960s the pub was a favourite haunt of York’s rugby league players and Mr Coyle, a bricklayer for William Birch and Sons, was a popular player.

The pair married at the St Philip and St James church, in Clifton, and have one son, Steven, aged 48.

Mrs Coyle ran the Winston House bed and breakfast, in Bishopthorpe Road, for 20 years and later worked for Rowntree’s in the Black Magic Room.