Plastic is in most nests of seabirds
A COUPLE who met through a letter intended for a lonely sailor have celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.
Jack and Shirley Godley, seen above sharing a smacker in front of the crew of an aircraft carrier, were accidentally brought together in 1957.
Shirley, then 15, had replied to a newspaper advert from a sailor looking for a penpal.
The man got so many letters he passed hers on to Jack because it had come from his home city of Sheffield.
Jack, then 19, wrote and discovered Shirley back lived
Paul Jeeves
just five minutes from his family home. They exchanged letters for a year before falling in love when he was on leave.
The pair kept in touch when Jack was sent to the Far East and he asked her dad George Kerrigan for permission to wed.
The wedding was rearranged three times because of Jack’s naval service before the pair finally tied the knot in 1960.
Jack had arrived back in Portsmouth on HMS Centaur just two days earlier and the pair exchanged a kiss with the crew lined up on deck.They went on to have five children – Karen, Kevan, Donna, Lisa, and Debra – 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
Shirley, 78, said: “I’m glad it ended up with him. I do think it was fate.”
Jack, 82, said: “We’re opposites and opposites attract. That’s why we have lasted.Well, that and doing what I am told.”
Because of the lockdown the couple were unable to celebrate their big day properly but family members arrived separately to wish them happy anniversary from the road.
John Ingham
PLASTIC is becoming commonplace in seabird nests, a study revealed yesterday.
Up to 80 per cent on a remote Scottish island contained the litter – brought by the tide.
The study of Lady Isle, a small island off Ayr, recorded plastic in about 30 per cent of gull nests in 2018.
But that figure rose to 80 per cent for shags, a smaller relative of cormorants, said the team from Glasgow University.
Shags reuse their nests every year which means plastic builds up whereas gulls make new ones each spring.
Ecologist Dr Ruedi Nager said: “Plastic ends up in nests not because seabirds pick them up in built-up areas and carry them to their nest, but because it is brought there by marine currents.”
One study said without action there will be more plastic by weight than fish in the sea by 2050.
Seabirds often eat it and die. Getting entangled in plastic nests also kills them.