A COUPLE who have lived in the same house in Lapford for 50 years and have been in the area for nearly all their 60 years of marriage, celebrate their diamond wedding anniversary this month.

Dudley and Edith Rice were married on January 28, 1950 at Bryncrugh Methodist Church near Tywyn, not far from Aberdovey, where Mrs Rice grew up. She remembers their wedding day as being very cold.

Dudley was born at Winkleigh and grew up at Nymet Rowland. School was at Coldridge and for him and his brother that meant a walk across fields towards Allerbridge and then on to Coldridge.

In bad weather they could not cross the bridge and had to walk halfway to Frogbury before turning up over the hill for Coldridge.

"Sometimes the policeman, who lived at Lapford, would get off his bicycle and walk along with us," Dudley recalled.

From when she was seven years old, Mrs Rice walked three miles to school and home again each day. Until then she had lodged during the week with a family near the school because it was too far for her to walk each day.

When she left school she worked first for a doctor in Tywyn. In 1946 she and her sister were called to work either at Rochdale making parachutes or in a services NAAFI canteen, choosing the latter because it was near home, later transferring to Oswestry, where the young couple met.

Dudley finished his schooling at North Tawton. By then he had a bicycle which he left in a shed at one of the houses at Frogbury, where he caught the school bus to North Tawton.

His father had worked first at Cleaveanger and then the Ambrosia factory at Lapford. Dudley began work as a gardener at The Grange at Lapford. When he was called up for National Service in 1948 he joined the Royal Artillery rising to the rank of Bombardier. He trained at Oswestry and returned as a Drill Instructor.

When the young couple came back to Lapford, they had a house at The Grange. Dudley worked for a time at the Ambrosia factory, at Rudge Rew with Sam Slade for six years and then for Mr Goss at Court Barton in Lapford.

When Mr Goss retired, Dudley helped him with the outside work to when Dart and Francis of Crediton built a bungalow for Mr Goss at the top of the village. Mrs Rice cared for his wife every day for some years.

Dudley then worked for Millsmith's in Exeter and, when they went bankrupt, joined Crediton builders C Rodd and Co Ltd, and then worked for Fondement Ltd, based in Exeter.

"We were talking the other day that whatever the weather, we always got to work, whether in Plymouth, Bristol, Exeter or further or locally. I would drive around to collect the men to get to work, often leaving home at 6am or earlier and not get back until 7pm or so," said Dudley. He retired in 1989.

His wife said that when she first moved to Lapford from North Wales she missed the singing but for some years she sang in the Lapford Village Choir. Highfield had not been built and was still fields

Both have their birthdays in May when Mrs Rice will be 81 and Dudley 80. They have a daughter and two sons, six grandchildren and three great grandchildren.

They moved to their present home on Westgate more than 50 years ago.

Dudley was a keen gardener, but now has help with the garden.

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