Surprise family party for a golden couple
TO CELEBRATE their golden wedding anniversary, Colin and Janet Le Marquand were treated to a surprise party by their family.
Around 34 family members from Guernsey and the UK gathered at Les Rocquettes Hotel on Sunday to have lunch with the couple to mark their 50 years of marriage.
‘It was a really lovely surprise,’ said Janet.
‘We really had no idea it had been planned.’
Colin said they felt like VIPs when they arrived at the hotel and were shown to the large function room.
‘We didn’t have an inkling of anything going on at all, everything family told us in the weeks leading up to Sunday [about them being busy] we just believed,’ he said.
After meeting at a dancing lesson at the late Dorothy Thurrel dance studio on Clifton Road in 1966, the pair were engaged two years later.
‘We just clicked right away,’ Colin said.
There were married on 7 April 1969 at Notre Dame du Rosaire church by the late Pere Lecluze.
When asked what the secret to a long and happy life together was, Colin said it was important not to have any secrets from one another.
‘You’ve got to learn to be good friends and do things together that the other person enjoys.
‘By doing that you don’t just live together, you form a bond as one.’
In July, the couple are going to Basingstoke for the Significant Wedding Anniversaries Mass.
Looking back, one of their happiest memories was taking their three children on camping holidays.
‘We were not well off, but we had fun camping and spending time together,’ said Colin.
‘We have three great kids together, Richard, Julie and Angela, and I think being in a happy family environment can be seen through the different generations of families.’
