A COUPLE who have raised hundreds of pounds for charity celebrated their 58th wedding anniversary last weekend.

Reg and Iris Smith were married at Newton St Cyres Parish Church on Easter Monday, 1959.

Iris was from Crockernwell, moving to East Holme at Newton St Cyres when a teenager with her family.

When she left school she worked at the Crediton Crisp factory beside the Crediton Inn, training as a State Enrolled Nurse as soon as she was aged 18.

Reg is an Exmouthian and they met at a dance at The Regal in Exmouth, Iris getting there by train.

He was a cook, doing his National Service in the Army Catering Corps, returning to being a cook at the Black Horse Cafe, which became a Berni Inn, then, after he retired, working as a porter at Exeter University at at St Luke’s on Heavitree Road until a few years ago.

He and Iris still live in the house they moved into when they got married. They have four sons and a daughter and played skittles as a family team.

CLIC the cancer charity has been the main recipient of their fundraising, Iris running bingo evenings and dances at Newton St Cyres, not doing so much nowadays.

However, their son in Exeter puts on a lights display every Christmas, last year raising £1,150 for charity and he has raised more than £700 for the neo-natal unit at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital.

Reg and Iris have six grandchildren and three great grandchildren plus another on the way.

Sue Read