A couple has recreated a 65-year-old wedding photo of the bride waving at a passing train—which she did every day as a girl.
George and Margaret Stone are celebrating their anniversary today, marking it with a tradition going back decades.
Margaret and her sister Janet spent their childhood waving at trains passing through their garden, with the drivers often tooting back.
She spent hours waving at the London to Penzance steam trains, which used to thunder past her home in Wiltshire so much so that on September 5, 1959, bride-to-be Margaret and Janet made a cake that 300 colleagues of the Western Region of British Railways shared.
Margaret and George met at Trowbridge Young Farmers Club and even broke off from their wedding to wave at the train from the family farm in Easterton, near Devizes.
Today, they recreated a photo taken on their wedding day 65 years ago,
They were also presented with a special wedding cake from Great Western Railway – to return the kind-hearted gesture Margaret made back on the eve of her wedding day
Their eldest daughter Annette said: “’It was just one of those lovely things my mum did.
”Her and her sister would run to the bottom of the garden, wave and the moving trains and they always tooted back.
“Mum’s grandfather was station master at Saltash train station and his brother was station master at Parranwell!
“She spent her childhood waving at the trains and it’s charming to see how she developed such a bond with the drivers and firemen.
“65 years of marriage is something truly special to celebrate and today’s presentation really has been the icing on the cake for mum and dad.”
The happy couple moved to Cornwall following their wedding and, after stints farming and running a B&B, took over Payne’s Picnic Garden in Carbis Bay, which they developed into the Cottage Hotel.
After 25 years, they moved on to run Beck’s Fish and Chips, which has been beloved by locals and tourists alike since 1989.
GWR Head of External Communications Dan Panes said: “This story really has captured our hearts the more we have researched it.
“Margaret was obviously a real train fanatic as a young girl and built up quite a rapport with the drivers, who would sound the train whistles as they rolled by.
“It’s like something out of The Railway Children.
“The fact she baked a wedding cake for railway colleagues was a wonderful gesture, so we were determined to mark their 65th wedding anniversary by returning the favor.”
The couple, who now live in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, has six children—Annette, Nicola, Richard, Robert, Sarah, and Rachel—and 18 grandchildren, with a great-grandchild due to arrive next year.
Produced in association with SWNS Talker
