A COUPLE who met at school when they were 15-years-old are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary.

It was not until after they had left Stanley Grammar School that Hugh and Mary Barkley discovered they were soulmates.

At the age of 18 Hugh joined the RAF and was stationed in Germany, while Mary (nee Snaith) went to teacher training college. She was eager to keep in touch with classmates but only Hugh replied to her letters.

One December Mary asked him to bring a gift and Hugh settled on an umbrella. Mary went out to visit a friend with strict instructions to her mother not to let her suitor go he arrived. She returned and whisked him to a dance and romance blossomed.

The couple got married in East Stanley Methodist Chapel, where her father Edward Snaith was trust secretary. The couple had sons

Mary got a job as a teacher and eventually became head teacher at St John’s Primary School in Coleford, Gloucestershire, while Hugh taught at the school in nearby Berry Hill.

The couple of Forest on Dean retired retired in the early 1990s.