Celebrating 60 years together

Herbert and Vera Sopp, of Braemar Way, are being treated to three celebrations to mark the anniversary.

The largest will take place tomorrowalong Bognor Regis seafront. A total of 75 guests, 74 of them relatives, are expected to attend.

Their August 2 anniversary was marked by a champagne tea at exclusive Amberley Castle with their two daughters.

Just before that, came a surprise party at the Cactus Country line dancing club at Felpham Community College which Herbert and Vera regularly attend.

Vera is a keen dancer. Herbert has to sit out the sessions temporarily while he waits for a knee operation.

They attribute their 60 years of marriage to pulling together and having a loving family. They have five children and ten grandchildren.

Herbert and Vera lived on different farms along Rotherbridge Lane on the outskirts of Petworth.

They fell in love after Herbert was asked by Vera's father to walk her home from the weekly social dances in the town's Iron Room. Vera said: 'I think it was Herbert's singing which attracted me.

'He used to sing songs by the likes of Jim Reeves at the dances.'

Within six months they were engaged and the wedding at Petworth's town church followed within another year.

The wedding day was sunny with occasional sharp showers to be the same as the day of their diamond anniversary. Herbert got wet because he had to walk from the farm where he lived along a track to Rotherfield Lane which was the nearest the wedding car could get.

The newly weds spent their first six months together living with Vera's parents. They then moved into a spartan farm cottage just down the road where they lived for five years.

A more modern farm cottage followed before they moved to another farm at Charlton, near Horndean in Hampshire, before another move to an Eastergate farm.

Vera and Herbert left farming to work and live at the Trident Grill in Richmond Road, Bognor, until they were given a council house in Slindon. A happy 23 years followed until a move to Stroud Green and to their present home six years ago.