A TEA party yesterday afternoon (August 19) saw Ern and Lorna Warren celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary, the diamond anniversary.
They were married on August 19, 1961 at Crediton Parish Church and have lived at Cheriton Bishop for nearly all of their married life.
They have three children - Joe, Jason and Mandy and two grandchildren - Claire and Tom.
Their first home together was at the farm, then a bungalow in Yeoford before they moved to Cheriton 57 years ago and to their present home on Glebelands 41 years ago.
At the age of 15, Mr Warren was apprenticed to C Pike and Co, Austin dealers on Alphington Street, Exeter, then the biggest garage in Devon.
He was paid £1 a week, half of which went on bus fares from Cheriton to work, cycling the two miles from home to Cheriton.
Then the main road went through the village and Mr Warren remembers a lady living opposite the New Inn, now long gone, whose hens would be pecking around on the road.
He later joined Reid and Lee as a mechanic, staying there for 43 years, retiring in 2004. Mr Warren said that life then in the motor trade was so different, sometimes a mechanic might have to make a part that was needed, very useful when working with his vintage tractor and motor cycles.
Mr Warren added that when he first went to Reid and Lee on Marsh Barton there were apple trees growing in the back yard.
It became Mann Egerton and when he left he received an inscribed clock, which was a long service award, plus a trip to the British Motor Museum at Gaydon near Birmingham. His colleagues gave him and Lorna a trip to Scarborough.
Mrs Warren trained as a secretary doing a two year course in shorthand, reaching 140 words a minute, and typing.
“We had to type to recordings of Russ Conway playing the piano and had to keep up with him,” she laughed.
She worked at the old Exeter City Hospital on Heavitree Road which later became the maternity hospital.
Mrs Warren’s father, Thomas Discombe, worked with his brother, James, as blacksmiths at Copplestone with the smithy where K J Stonemason and Co now are. The family lived at Chaffcombe.
She remembers that Copplestone then had a baker which later became the butcher’s, a bicycle shop, Post Office near the railway bridge, a village stores. Mr Norton was the saddler.
“The baker never let his oven go out over the weekend and on Sundays everyone would take their Sunday dinner there to cook,” said Mrs Warren.
When she was eight years-old, Mrs Warren’s family moved to Knowle and she went to school at Shirley Corner, Copplestone, now a house.
After their three children were born, Mrs Warren worked for 33 years in the office at Cheriton Bishop School, a job that included looking after the children at lunchtimes.
They remember being cut off by snow for weeks at the farm with no electricity nor telephone.
Then in the 1962-3 winter when it began to snow on Boxing Day and they could not get to Copplestone again until March.
They well remember the enormous amount of traffic that would go through Cheriton in the summer and how one enterprising ice cream seller took his cart through the stationary traffic.
They have enjoyed travelling, especially after their retirement having been to Canada twice to visit relatives, including going up the 553 metre (1,815ft) high CNN Tower which was completed in 1976.
Mr and Mrs Warren walked on the glass floor, encouraged by their grand daughter. On a good day the tower gives a view of at least 100 miles.
They saw Niagara Falls, spending a night there. “This is lit at night and very pretty,” said Mrs Warren. They stayed in Canada for three weeks on their second visit.
They have visited Austria, relishing the smell of the hay meadows. They have also been to Holland and the bulbfields. “We have been to Scotland 17 times by coach. Lovely to sit back and relax,” they said.