Diamond days ahead for a close couple (From Andover Advertiser)

Diamond days ahead for a close couple

2:20pm Monday 6th July 2009

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A BASINGSTOKE couple who grew up two doors away from one another are celebrating their diamond wedding.

Thomas and Gladys Cooke, who lived as children in South Ham, Basingstoke, tied the knot at St Michael’s Church, in Church Lane, Basingstoke, on July 9, 1949.

Six decades later the couple live in Hackwood Road, Basingstoke and are still happily married with two children, four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

Mrs Cooke, 81, said: “We don’t argue over anything – life’s too short.

“You’ve got to give and take and half the trouble with people these days is money – but I would never do anything without asking Tom and he would never do anything without asking me.”

Mrs Cooke had not seen her future husband – who joined the Army aged 16 – for several years when she spied him in a grey pin-striped suit standing beneath the clock inside Basingstoke Town Hall – now The Willis Museum – at a dance.

Mr Cooke similarly caught sight of his future bride. The next day he knocked on her door under the pretext of seeing her mother and asked her out.

Mrs Cooke said: “To start with I wasn’t all that keen, but it was when we had one big argument that I realised what I thought of him and he realised the same about me.”

The couple married after a two-year engagement and honeymooned in Clacton-on-Sea, in Essex.

Straight after their honeymoon, Mr Cooke joined the Basingstoke fire service and had to train away from home for three months.

Mrs Cooke said: “They paid for him to come back once a month but he hitch-hiked home every weekend.”

Mr Cooke, 87, was a fireman for 40 years, retiring at 55, but worked as their photographer for another ten years, turning his hobby into his job.

In 1950, the couple’s first child Jennifer was born, followed by Chris in 1953. Mrs Cooke returned to work as a cook when Chris was seven, clocking up 24 years as a chef in three Basingstoke school canteens.

Mr Cooke, who served in the Royal Hampshire Regiment and spent time in north Africa, Italy and Greece, said: “We have had a good life. We have our little ups and downs but we talk it out and that’s the end of it.”

The happy couple are marking their wedding anniversary with a trip to Hayling Island with their two children, and several parties with friends in the following weeks.

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