A pair of diamonds
COUPLE CELEBRATE 60 YEARS OF MARRIAGE AFTER MEETING AT BUS STOP
A COUPLE who found love underneath an umbrella at a bus stop are celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary.
Charlie and Norma Berry, of Lowthorpe Street in Moss Side, are toasting 60 years together after a rainy evening in Manchester brought them together.
They reached their special milestone yesterday, receiving gifts and good wishes from loved ones.
The couple met after a chance encounter at a bus stop on Stretford Road in Hulme in 1958, while it was pouring with rain.
Noticing Charlie getting soaked as both waited for a bus, she invited him to join her underneath her brolly. “I had just come out of the Court School of Dancing where I worked in the cloakroom and was waiting on a bus to go home,” Norma told the M.E.N.
“It was raining heavily and I was actually quite pleased because I had just bought a new fancy red umbrella and I was able to use it for the first time.
”Charlie had just come out of the Salutation pub and was also waiting on the bus.
“I noticed he was getting soaked through so I asked him if he wanted to come under with me.”
The couple hit it off straight away, arranging to meet the following day and the rest, as they say, is history.
After many regular dates, including day trips to the seaside in Blackpool and Southport, the pair moved into their first home on Atholl Road in Whalley Range and tied the knot on March 26, 1960, at St Margaret’s Church.
A couple of years later, they moved to Lowthorpe Street.
To the delight of lifelong City supporter Charlie, he could now watch his team play every week on his doorstep.
They have now lived there for 58 years.
When asked what the secret to a long, happy marriage was, Charlie said: “Being able to overcome life’s difficulties together, compromising and staying healthy.”
Charlie, who worked in the warehouse at Debenhams in Manchester city centre for 31 years, and clerical worker Norma went on to have daughter Anne, and they are also devoted grandparents to Jenny.
They enjoy regular trips to Glasgow to visit their granddaughter, as well as yearly holidays to the island of Jersey. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, celebrations are understandably postponed for now but the diamond couple are planning to celebrate later in the year with family.
I noticed he was getting soaked through so I asked him if he wanted to come under my umbrella with me Norma Berry