Celebrating their golden wedding anniversary last Saturday were well-known local couple, Veronica and Jim Martin, of Penally.

Veronica and Jim were married at St. Michaels Church, Gidea Park, Essex, on September 24, 1966 - “a good year, as it was also the year that England won the football World Cup,” joked Jim.

The couple met at a popular jazz club in 1963, when Veronica was still a teenager and Jim was in his early 20s, and, as the saying goes, ‘it was love at first sight’ - well it certainly was for Jim, who remarked: “I saw her and wanted to dance with her”... and they have been dancing together ever since!

“I proposed within three weeks and we had a three-year engagement while saving up to buy a house,” added Jim, who at the time was working as a maintenance electrician at Mount Pleasant Sorting Office in London.

Veronica, meanwhile, was employed as a secretary with Lloyds Underwriters.

Later Jim went to work with the Ford Motor Company and while there he became friends with colleague Alan Haley, another name no doubt familiar to many Tenby folk.

Alan’s family had originated from Pembrokeshire and when Veronica and Jim were considering taking a holiday with their now two young children, Andrew and Tiffany, he suggested that they give the county a try.

“Pembrokeshire? I didn’t even know where it was, but we decided to come, stayed at Freshwater East and immediately fell in love with the area,” said Jim, who recalled it was in 1970, during the time that the Cleddau Bridge collapsed during construction.

Two years later, Alan Haley himself moved to Tenby when he bought a hotel in Victoria Street, and a year afterwards, Veronica and Jim followed him to the resort when they purchased the Hildebrand Hotel opposite.

“We moved there on September 14, 1973, and ran it for 30 years and seven months, before finally retiring and moving to Penally in 2004,” said Jim, a well known figure at Tenby Golf Club, which he joined back in 1974 and where he is now involved with the senior section.

Incidentally, it has been a time of double celebration for Jim, as it was also his 75th birthday earlier in the year, when he and Veronica were pleased to enjoy a holiday with their son Andrew, 48, who is now a scientist with NAGRA in Switzerland.

Daughter Tiffany, 46, meanwhile, is a little closer to home, being employed at the Tenby office of West Wales Properties estate agents.

“I count myself a lucky man,” said Jim, “I wouldn’t change a thing. I love Veronica dearly, she has been the best thing in my life.”

Veronica was unavilable for comment at the time, but we are sure the feeling is mutual!