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Two Catholic couples from Norfolk overcame the vagaries of hard winters to get to their weddings, and many decades later are celebrating God’s and each other’s faithfulness.
Nick Walmsley from St Helen’s Hoveton writes: “It must be something of a record for one parish to have two couples celebrating a Golden and a Platinum Wedding Anniversary in the same week. But that is what happened at the parish Mass at St Helen’s Catholic Church, Hoveton on Saturday February 25.”
Duncan and Mary Edmonds were married at the Catholic Church of Our Lady Star of the Sea, Wells-next-the Sea in February 1963 during the legendary hard winter which made getting to the church difficult, many of the local roads having been closed by snow drifts. Two years later they moved to Stalham on the Norfolk Broads and after attending Mass at several local churches migrated to St Helen’s in Hoveton which was then in the care of St George’s Parish, Sprowston, under Fr Tony Rogers.
Michael and Elaine Haughton were married at St Alban’s Catholic Church in St Annes-on-Sea in the Fylde, hard by Blackpool Airport. Again, the weather in February 1973 was much as it had been 10 years before, and Elaine recalls cancelled trains and other travel difficulties, but both of them got to the church on time. They moved to Norfolk and arrived at St Helen’s in the early 1990s. Their son Steven was a very capable altar server at St Helen’s, and, like the Edmonds, they are active in the thriving community there.
Pictured above left to right: Mary Edmonds and Dr Duncan Edmonds, celebrating 60 years of marriage; Elaine Haughton and Michael Haughton, celebrating 50 years; Fr Peter Raj, Parish Priest of Sacred Heart Parish North Walsham in which St Helen’s is situated. Image: Jenny Haughton.
