Hyde couple renew vows on 65th wedding anniversary

A Hyde couple renewed their wedding vows in a moving ceremony on Saturday night, 65 years after they first tied the knot!

Joan and Eddie Eadsforth were married on May 15 1954, in a simple registry office ceremony, witnessed by just two friends.

65 years later, the couple celebrated their sapphire wedding anniversary at the Village Hotel in Hyde, where Eddie had a surprise waiting for his wife, with the help of their five children.

Joan thought the event was a simple anniversary party, but when the couple entered the room to Kenny Rogers’ ‘The Vows Go Unbroken’, she was the only one who didn’t know what was coming next.

Eddie had arranged for them to renew their vows, with the couple promising to continue to love and cherish each other in sickness and in health before exchanging eternity rings.

Led by Independent Celebrant, Trisha Proudfoot, the couple also took part in ‘hand fasting’, an old Pagan custom when hands would be bound as a means of marriage.

The loved ones who’d gathered to celebrate with Joan and Eddie heard how originally, Joan was supposed to date one of Eddie’s friends, but Eddie and his pal were stood up on a double date, when the girls didn’t like the look of the ‘Brylcreamed Boys’.

Not to be deterred, Eddie phoned Joan a few days later and when they got chatting, Joan agreed to go on a date with Eddie to the Globe Cinema.

In 1953, Eddie was called up to National Service Training, but the old adage ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ proved truer than ever. The couple married when Eddie was home on leave but the very next day, he was shipped off to Hong Kong for his next posting.

The couple bought their first home in West Gorton for just £200 and had five children; Wayne, Melvin, Carl, Susan and Sandra.

The Eadsforth clan has been growing ever since, and Joan and Eddie now have 17 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren, with another on the way.