Sydenham Couple Married 60 Years

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29856, 23 June 1962, Page 2

Sydenham Couple Married 60 Years

An 81-year-old former stonemason, who still takes his 84-year-old wife driving, will celebrate his diamond wedding anniversary by a “quiet day at home” on Monday with his wife.

He is Mr Arthur Brightmore, of Sydenham, who, with his wife, Theresa (nee Harper) has been living in the same comfortable wooden bungalow for the last 58 years.

Mr and Mrs Brightmore [have noticed “many comings and goings” during this time. Included in these changes have been the enlargement of their family over the years until they now have to remember the birthdays of dozens of relatives, including their two married daughters, six grandchildren and 17 great grandchildren. Born and brought up in Christchurch, Mr and Mrs Brightmore were married at St. Michael’s Church, Lichfield street.

After leaving school. Mr Brightmore began employment at the brickworks on Cashmere Hills ("at five shillings a week in those days”), but 10 years later transferred to a firm of monumental masons in Durham street.

Although officially in retirement for the last 16 years, he still goes there “every now and then to have a look around and give them a hand.” To his knowledge there are only about four men still working in his own trade in Christchurch, Mr ’Brightmore said. Another important aspect lof the couple's present life is the ‘‘meals-on-wheels’’ visit carried out three times a week by members of the Red Cross Society. ’The dinners

they bring us are just wonderful,’ ’ Mrs Brightmore said.

Other activities enjoyed by Mr »and Mrs Brightmore include following the news and thS football and racing results, tending their large collection of cacti, ferns and other plants, and paying their monthly visits to a society, whose activities include church meetings, picnics and other outings. Reminiscing yesterday on the day in 1902 on which they were married, Mrs Brightmore showed a reporter her original white' delicately-embroidered wedding veil, which has been kept carefully packed away in a box. “Oh, yes, it was a beautiful day for a wedding—just like today,” she said.