A YORK couple who first meeting on a bus as teenagers are celebrating their diamond wedding today.

Len and Eileen Spray, of Huntington, were married at All Saints’ Church, Wistow, near Selby, on June 20, 1953.

The couple set up home in Selby before moving to Leeds, then Huddersfield and finally York, where they ran the Grasmead House Hotel in Scarcroft Hill for ten years.

During this time, Len also worked as a director of the York Tourism Board, and was chairman of the Greater York Association of Hotels and Guest Houses.

Len, now 83, and Eileen, 80, retired in the mid 1990s, to spend more time with their grandchildren, and both still recall how they met.

Eileen said: “I was 14 and he was 16, so we’ve known each other a long time.

“We actually met after I left a pair of gloves on a bus. I went to meet it when it came back, to see if I could get them back.

“He was on the bus and said to the lad he was sitting with ‘who’s that? I’m going to go out with her.’.”

“I got my gloves back and a husband as well.”

Len said: “We’ve been retired for nearly 20 years now, and it’s been unbelieveable. We’ve seen our youngest grandson who was a little baby of one, now a four handicap golfer working at Sandburn.

“It’s been great all the time really, and Eileen’s a fantastic mum, grandmother and great-grandmother. She’s the anchor for the entire family.”

Eileen said it didn’t feel to her like ten years since their golden wedding anniversary, and had some advice for younger couples.

She said: “Those ten years have just flown by. Whatever you’re doing, relish it, because it flashes by so quickly.”

The couple have three children, Lesley, John and Nicola, five grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren, and will celebrate their anniversary in stages, firstly with a meal this week, with a visit from more of the family from Australia at the end of the month, then with a family trip to Norfolk later this summer.

Eileen said: “We’re making a year of it, like the Queen’s diamond jubilee. Why not?”

A message from the couples’ children said: “It’s inspiring to see them together after so long, and we wish them many congratulations.”