Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Married.. 60 years23 after we got engaged
A COUPLE who got engaged 60 years ago have finally got round to tying the knot.
Alex Hamilton, 90, married Jane, 89, in a white wedding after setting what is believed to be a British record for an engagement.
They got together in 1962 – the year the first James Bond film was released – and planned to wed.
Both had been married to other people when they met and fell for each other in 1956, but had to wait six years before they got together.
Alex asked Jane to marry him when she had left her first husband, and they both had children from previous relationships.
Being parents along with running a business became the focus of their lives and they never got around to making it official.
Jane changed her surname by deed poll and their kids were only told that they weren’t actually married after they turned 16.
But they finally tied the knot on Saturday, with Jane taken down the aisle in a wheelchair by granddaughter Claire Mcdonald, 29.
Grandson Craig Mcdonald, 23, made a wedding cake decorated with edible wildflowers.
Proud daughter Sally Mcdonald, 59, said both her parents were visibly nervous: “Usually at this age people are thinking about funerals.
“This is a major celebration, it was really beautiful. Dad was quite emotional, it was the ultimate gift he had to give her, to marry her. It
was almost like this was the way it should be, looking at what they have done together.”
At the time they met, Alex had two youngsters and was living in Edinburgh while Jane was a mum of one in Birmingham. But they are friends with their exes and consider each other’s children their own.
They had two more children together and now have 11 grandchildren. Their wedding was held at their local church in Tillicoultry, Clackmannanshire, Scotland. Care home worker Sally said her parents still behave like teenagers and said they had cohabited at a time when social expectations were strict.
Sally said: “If we go out to dinner with them, they are looking across the table at each other, they are always so cheeky and flirt with each other. They’ve been like that for 60 years.” She said Jane made the first move, taking Alex’s hand as they crossed a road. She added: “They still go out on little dates. He said ‘would you marry me when the divorce comes through’. There was a bit of stigma at first but it was the right thing.
“Dad talks so highly of her, he says ‘you are one of the most beautiful women’. They are really cute, she giggles like a schoolgirl when he smiles at her. Sometimes the hard choices are the good decisions.”
The couple are believed to have broken a British record set by Freda Wood and Jack Lee, from Cheshire, who got engaged in 1957 and wed in September 2010.
The world record is held by Octavio Guillan and Adriana Martinez who took the plunge after 67 years in June 1969 in Mexico City.
They still flirt with each other, it’s been like that for 60 years SALLY MCDONALD