70 platinum years of married bliss together
Devoted couple reach milestone Star’s ex-wife denies abuse Officials bid Sala farewell
THEY survived being separated by war and several brushes with death.
Now, this couple are the definition of a true Valentine’s love story.
When Cyril and Wyn Bowron were separated during the Second World War, it did not stop their romance from blossoming.
The Low Fell couple met at Newcastle’s Robert Sinclair Tobacco Company when Cyril was working for a chartered accountant and was sent to do an audit.
But just months later, in 1944, Cyril was enlisted in the Army and survived two brushes with death.
Now as they celebrate their Platinum Wedding anniversary, Cyril, 92, and Wyn, 91, recall the early days of their romance.
Cyril said: “I was sitting there and this young girl came in. We got talking and then spoke quite a bit internally on the phone and then went out together,” he said.
“It was one of those things – love at first sight.”
But just months after meeting, Cyril was enlisted and spent more than three years in the Army and diced with death on more than one occasion.
Tragically, when Cyril was training with the Durham Light Infantry in Northumberland, 10 young men were killed while they were out training.
“We were training in Northumberland and went out this Sunday morning,” he said. “There were 20 of us soldiers, in two boats – 10 in one and 10 in the other – full pack on to go from one side to the other.
“We got over and the other boat, which you couldn’t see because it was behind the bend, capsized and they were all drowned.”
The Army recruits died on the River Coquet near Guyzance when their boat was swept over a weir and capsized on January 17, 1945.
Near the end of the war, Cyril was sent to Holland to fight with the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infrantry.
He said: “I was in Holland at Arnhem, which was still in enemy hands, and we were taken into these private houses that had been taken over.
“Before daylight you were taken out from the houses and to the trenches and this particular day we were in the trenches, when shelling started. The trench next to ours suffered a direct hit and blew the two soliders.
“That could have been me. So I was very lucky again.”
Cyril returned home in December 1947 and was reunited with his soonto-be wife.
He said: “I was away in the Army for three-and-a-quarter years and we wrote to each other nearly every other day.
“I came back in the December of ’47. We waited until a year come February and we got married at St John’s Church.”
The couple, who have lived in their home for more than 60 years, tied the knot at St John’s Church, Low Fell, on February 12, 1949.
“Then we had a family straight away and Jennifer came along, then Susan, then Jeff,” Cyril said.
Surrounded by their family, including their eight grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren, the pair have celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary.
Looking back on seven decades together, Cyril and Wyn said the secret to a happy marriage is...patience.
Wyn said: “Good food, patience...it’s a virtue. We consider ourselves very lucky.” THE ex-wife of Paul Hollywood has denied verbally abusing the Great British Bake Off judge’s new partner during an incident at a supermarket.
Alex Hollywood, 54, and Summer Monteys-fullam, 23, met one another by chance at a Marks & Spencer store in Canterbury, Kent, and became embroiled in a dispute, according to reports in The Sun.
A representative of Alex denied she had verbally abused Monteys-fullam during the incident, to which police were called. However, they did confirm the pair met on Tuesday.
They said a “shocked” Alex had maintained a “dignified position” since she and Hollywood announced their split in November 2017. CARDIFF City manager Neil Warnock and club CEO Ken Choo joined mourners at the funeral of Emiliano Sala in his hometown in Argentina yesterday.
The 28-year-old striker’s body was repatriated on Friday before it was returned to Progreso, about 350 miles from Buenos Aires, for the public vigil.
Warnock and Choo joined locals from the small town for a service in the gymnasium of Sala’s boyhood club, San Martin de Progreso.
They arrived wearing black suits with yellow daffodils pinned to their jackets as a tribute to Sala.
Sala died on January 21 when the plane he was travelling in crashed in the English Channel after he had visited players at his former French club, Nantes.