AS the Queen celebrates her Golden Jubilee this weekend, a North-East couple are marking their own special day.

Ellen and Terry McLaughlin, of Darlington, joined family and friends yesterday to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary.

They celebrated their silver anniversary in style in May 1977 after they won The Northern Echo's competition to find a silver wedding couple to mark the Queen's Silver Jubilee.

The couple, who have five children, ten grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, were presented with jewellery vouchers to buy each other a commemorative gift.

Their daughter Lesley McDonald, then aged 25, nominated her parents for the competition.

She said: "I can't remember what I wrote about them, but it must have done the trick because they won."

The couple bought a gold ring and a jewellery box with the vouchers.

They met when Mr McLaughlin was serving in the Signals at Catterick, and Mrs McLaughlin was working there in the catering corps.

The family emigrated to the US in the 1960s for three years but returned to Mrs McLaughlin's native Darlington, where they have lived ever since.

Mrs McDonald said: "My dad keeps saying he has served a life sentence, but they are a very happy couple."

Family from Ipswich and the US were arriving in the North-East yesterday to celebrate the occasion.