Roffey couple celebrate 60 years of marriage

Dot, 89, and Phil, 88, Gibson celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary last week and revealed it was a lack of arguments that had led to their marriage being such a success.

Phil said: “The last 60 years have gone quite well actually.

“We have never rowed I don’t think. It’s about a bit of give and take and making the best of it.”

Dot agreed with her husband.

She said: “We have not had many rows. We have got on together and we have got by.

“I think we have done very well really.”

The couple used to live in the same street when they were younger and that’s how the pair ended up getting together.

Phil said:“I had taken Dot’s father out to a cricket match and when we came back Dot came out of the house and thanked me and I asked her if she would like to go to the pictures and that how it all started.”

The street in question was Millthorpe Road, in Roffey, and on the 28th August 1954, one year after the pair first got together, they got married at Horsham register office. When the two of them got married Dot was 29 and Phil was 28.“I had a toy boy,” Dot joked. “But we haven’t done too badly have we.”

The couple went on to have four children, one boy and three girls, and now also have seven grandchildren.

To celebrate the milestone they had a party thrown in their honour at the weekend. Members of the family from all over the country turned up to celebrate their achievement including their son from Devon and a niece that came down from Derbyshire.