Everlasting love of Calow couple who met as teenagers and are celebrating diamond wedding anniversary

Alan and Pat Chapman will mark their diamond wedding anniversary on Thursday, March 30, by spending the day quietly at home in Calow where they have lived in the same house for 59 years.

A meal out next week and holiday in Llandudno during the summer are on the cards for the couple whose last break away was in Menorca five years ago.

Pat, 80, and Alan, 81, have two daughters, Denise and Michelle, four grandsons, three great-grandsons and one great-granddaughters.

Asked about their recipe for a long and happy marriage, Pat said: “We enjoy each other’s company. You have to be patient with one another and listen to one another.

“Everyone has their ups and downs. I can get fiery and Alan is placid; if we have a row, Alan looks at me and it just dissolves.”

One look at Pat more than 65 years ago sparked the flame for an everlasting love. Alan was a 15-year-old miner at Arkwright Colliery when he first clapped eyes on Pat, who was nearly 15 and a pupil at St Helena School. Pat said: “I was out walking with one of my friends on Brimington Common one Sunday and Alan was going to the pictures. He just saw me and wanted a date but he never asked me – he asked his friend to do it. On our first date we went to the Odeon in Chesterfield, I think it was to watch an Elvis Presley film but I can’t remember which one.”

The couple courted for five years before they got married at St Peter’s Church in Calow. Pat said of the wedding day: “It was cold, rainy and had been snowing.” The bridesmaids were Alan’s sister Ann and his niece Christine and Pat’s cousins Susan and Barbara. A celebratory meal of salads and cakes at the church hall was followed by drinks in The Anvil pub where wedding guests raised their glasses to the bride and groom. A couple of days later the new Mr and Mrs Chapman went on honeymoon to Chester.

Pat and Alan spent the first year of married life living with a cousin before moving into a council house which they eventually bought. Alan still grows vegetable and flowers in their garden. Pat was a keen knitter in her younger days and now enjoys doing crosswords.

The couple were formerly committee members at Calow club but when that closed around 15 years ago, they started going to Grassmoor club where they still listen to music from the 60s, 70s and 80s.

In their younger years Alan and Pat enjoyed holidays overseas and visited Cyprus, Bulgaria, Spain, Greece and Crete on their travels.

During his working life Alan was employed at Camms construction firm, the National Coal Board where he drove earth-moving equipment and latterly at Tapton Grove mental health unit where he would drive patients to medical appointments.

Pat’s first job was key operator in an office at Chesterfield Tube Works and she relinquished the post when she became a mum. She was later employed on domestic duties at Calow Primary School where she worked for 32 years before retiring.