Couple reach 80 years of marriage

With the number of marriages on the decrease and the divorce rate ever increasing, it is wonderful to be able to tell the tale of a couple who have just reached their 80th wedding anniversary.

Walter Postings, known as Wally, and his wife Beatrice, known as Pete, celebrated this momentous milestone last Friday (27 March) with their family in the Somerset village of Burnham.

Silver wedding anniversaries (25 years) and golden wedding anniversaries (50 years) may seem commonplace when compared with an 80th anniversary, which is symbolised by oak. Wally and Pete have even seen off emerald (55), diamond (60) and platinum (70).

Wally and Pete are the second living couple to have reached this milestone, following Frank and Anita Milford of Plymouth who passed the celebrated mark on 26 May 2008. They are looking forwarded to celebrating 81 years of marriage in less than two months.

The Postings celebrated their occasion with family and friends at Tudor Lodge Residential Home in Burnham with food and drinks before carrying on the celebrations with other residents of the home later in the day.

The auspicious occasion of the couple’s wedding was 27 March 1929, the time of the Great Crash in the world’s stock markets, so recessions like the current one must seem run of the mill to the Postings.

Both of the couple passed their one hundredth birthdays last year, Pete in August and Wally in October. They had three children – one of whom has died – and four grandchildren. In addition they have eight great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.

In their lifetimes, since 1908, they have seen two world wars, five monarchs (Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII, George VI and Elizabeth II), and 19 prime ministers.

Wally spent 40 years running Culverwells Antiques in Victoria Street so is well-known in Burnham. There may be no secret to their relationship, but the clues are there. Manager at the Lodge, Chris Arnold, said of the couple: “They can often be found holding hands in the lounge, which is lovely to see and testament to how close they are after 80 years of marriage.”

The Guinness Book of Records says that the longest marriage in Britain was a Welsh couple, Thomas and Elizabeth Morgan, who reached 81 years and 260 days. The record for the longest marriage in the world belongs to a couple in India who reached the mark of 86 years.

  What's this?