SOME wedding guests didn’t think Brian and Pat Price’s marriage would last more than a few weeks, but sixty years later they are having the last laugh.

The couple stuck together through thick and thin and this week marked their Diamond anniversary with a romantic dinner for two.

“We didn’t have a big wedding because it was a shotgun wedding,” said Pat. “And there were two or three people there who said they wouldn’t give it six months.”

Six decades later they are looking back at a happy marriage that has carried them through all the trials and tribulations of bringing up a family of seven children.

Brian first spotted Pat from a rooftop perch when he was working as a tiler. The young Battersea girl had moved to the town as part of the London overspill and was doing a milk round for Devonshire Dairies.

She wasn’t impressed with his wolf whistles and in no uncertain terms told him where to go.

But romance blossomed when she got a job at Garrards, the record player firm, and became friends with his sister Betty.

When she was taken home for tea one day he recognised her as the pretty girl who had told him off.

A year later they were tying the knot Gorse Hill Methodist Church, watched by a small group of family and friends.

They went on to bring up their four sons and three daughters in the three-bedroomed house in Marlowe Avenue where they still live.

It was a squeeze – Pat and Brian slept on a put you up in one of the downstairs rooms – and money was often tight, especially if the weather was bad and Brian was unable to work.

“If I had a pound to buy egg and chips at the end of the week we were doing alright,” said Pat, 78. “We never asked anybody for help.”

But it was a matter of pride that the children never went without.

Brian, 81, retired some years ago, but Pat still works as a cleaner at the defence academy in Shrivenham and has been there for the past 14 years. “I enjoy it,” she said. “It keeps me going.”

He devoted husband gets up every morning at 6am to driver her to the bus stop, returning later in the day to pick her up.

The couple, who have 25 grandchildren and 30 great grandchildren, also enjoy their regular holidays to Lanzarote, often going with a large family group. Last time there were 14 of them.

“We went there for our anniversary and birthdays last year,” said Brian, who is already looking forward to his next holiday.

As well as a dinner for two the couple were planning a family party at the Gas Club on Saturday to mark their special occasion.