A YORK couple who first met each other on a blind date are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary today.

David and Patricia Calpin, of Hillcrest Avenue, Nether Poppleton, tied the knot on July 27, 1957, about two years after they first met near the Rowntree’s factory in York.

Patricia said: “I used to work with his sister. She told David about me and we arranged to meet.”

The couple got married at St Wilfrid’s Church, in York’s Duncombe Place.

Sixty years later, they are still going strong and are celebrating their Diamond Wedding Anniversary. To mark the milestone, they will be enjoying a meal with their family at the weekend.

Explaining what has kept them together for the past 60 years, Patricia said: “Hard work and getting on with the good times and the bad. If there’s a problem we’ve dealt with it. We didn’t used to see much of each other, only at meal times.

“In life today there’s too many people running away from problems. You’ve got to face them together.

“Everybody has problems, if you face them together it makes you stronger.”

David, 80, was born and raised in York, while Patricia, 81, grew up in Birmingham, with her family moving to York shortly after the Second World War.

Both of them worked at the Rowntree’s factory, David making chocolate and Patricia in the machine room.

David went on to own and run a firm called Ebor Coal Company, which sold coal, and Patricia worked with him doing office work.

The couple have three children- Lorraine, Susan and Ian - six grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

Meanwhile, another couple are also celebrating their Diamond Wedding today - Bernice and Eddy Atkinson of Woodside Avenue, Heworth.

The couple met when they were both working in the cream packing department at the former Rowntree factory and started going out just before Eddy went to do his National Service. They went to dances, with Bernice teaching Eddy to jive, and they became champion jive dancers.

They got married at St Philip and St James Church, Clifton, and had three sons Kevin, Keith and Neil, four grand-children and three great-grandchildren. Two of their sons, Kevin and Keith, were tragically killed in a road accident in 1986.

Eddy, 81, said he later drove a train on the Rowntree factory site, did cleaning work at the university and then worked at York Racecourse car park. He played for Heworth Rugby League Club, as did their sons, and he and Bernice still helped to clean and cut the grass there.

Bernice, 83, and Eddy, have already been for a celebration a meal in the Melrose Stand at York Racecourse and are planning another meal with their family.