Bridport's diamond couple (From Bridport and Lyme Regis News)
Contact the Bridport News with your stories, pictures and video footage. Send us an email
Bridport's diamond couple
1:00pm Friday 22nd March 2013 in News By Rene Gerryts
CELEBRATION: Gordon and Pamela Pitcher
SHE was 16 and on a day trip to Bridport, he was 20 and peering into a cycle shop window.
That was the start of a relationship that has lasted more than 60 years as Pamela and Gordon Pitcher celebrated their diamond wedding last week on March 14.
Pamela, 78, and Gordon, 82, got talking in the hour she had to wait for her bus back to Weymouth.
But that 60 minutes sealed their future – he asked her on a date dancing at the then Ritz in Weymouth and she said yes.
Pamela said: “I was here with my friend who was visiting her grandmother and he was with friends and we just got chatting before I had to catch the bus back. We only had about an hour.”
Pamela fell for the dashing young man who had served in the RAF and was now busy in the building trade.
She said: “He was looking in Daniel’s shop window. I was 16 and a half then and we got married when I was 18.”
She met no opposition from her family who approved of her choice, liking the man who was born and bred in Bridport.
Pamela said it was Gordon’s good looks and his character she was drawn to.
She said: “He was just very nice and he’s been my friend ever since.
“We just got drawn to one another. Sometimes I say something to him and he was just going to say the same to me. It’s chemistry isn’t it?
“I don’t really know the secret. Everybody goes through their ups and downs and I can’t say we’ve never had a cross word. I just think we talk to one another and we are friends and soulmates.”
They got married in St Paul’s Church in Weymouth on March 14, 1953 and lived in Barrack Street for 55 years before moving to Fishweir Fields six years ago.
Gordon worked in the building trade all his life until he retired.
They have a son and a daughter and five grandchildren.
Pamela worked for Dorset Cake Company but that didn’t last long as by her 19th birthday she was pregnant with her son.
She stayed home looking after their son and daughter until they were older and then she worked at Price Right.
Pamela was involved with Bernard Gale and the Bridport Pantomime for 40 years only retiring when she was 70. Gordon used to do the lights. Instead of a party the couple are having a break on the Isle of Wight.
