Couple who met at pier dance celebrate 65th anniversary
A CARDIFF couple have just celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary.
Graham and Joan Draper (née Long) tied the knot on September 11, 1954, at St John’s Church in Canton, Cardiff. The reception was held at a hotel in Richmond Road, which is sadly no longer there.
They took the train to Torquay for their honeymoon following the reception.
The couple celebrated their anniversary with an afternoon tea at the place where they first met – Penarth Pier. They first met there at a dance, when it was a ballroom.
Joan had caught Graham’s eye that evening and while queuing to catch the bus home to Cardiff, Graham grabbed Joan’s hand telling her he had kept her a seat on the crowded bus, although that “seat” turned out to be his lap.
Graham later proposed in the back row of the Colliseum cinema on Cowbridge Road East.
Once married, Graham who was orginally from Ely and Joan from Canton, lived with Joan’s parents until they had saved up enough for a deposit to buy a house in Victoria Park in 1969.
The evening before the 9/11 terror attacks, they landed in New York planning to celebrate their anniversary on their first ever holiday outside of Europe. On that fateful morning, they were on an open-top tourist bus heading towards the Statue of Liberty, when they spotted one of the planes fly overhead. The rest is history, although it was many years before they could pluck up the courage to venture abroad following this experience.
The couple have a daughter and a son, five grandchildren and two greatgrandchildren with another due in January. When asked for any advice on being married for 65 years, Graham said: “Keep in with the womenfolk.”