A COUPLE who have spent a lifetime 'stuck together like glue' will celebrate their Diamond Wedding Anniversary.
Phil and Beryl Micheu, from Kinmel Bay, will mark 60 years of wedding bliss on Thursday, September 28.
Photographer Phil, 81, met Beryl, 87, around Christmas in 1959 at Rhyl Regent Dansette, a ballroom which was then situated above Burtons in the High Street.
"We met there, before the Beatles became famous," Phil said, who was a junior photographer at the time and was doing an apprenticeship.
"The music and the atmosphere of that time was the likes of Bill Haley, Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly. It was all early 'Rock 'n' roll' and we had motorbikes and things. I went there with my friend. We used to take ballroom lessons, it was the 'in thing' so we could go to the ballroom and dance halls and get acquainted with young girls.
"My mate and I were just chatting and I saw across the dance floor some girls sitting in chairs in a row. It was like a scene from Grease. They got up and started dancing except for one girl who just sat there. I thought 'oh she looks quite nice'. I asked if she would like to dance and she said yes. We stayed together all evening in the dance hall and arranged to meet the following week."
Phil, who was just 17 at the time, nearly didn't get to his meeting with Beryl [then aged 23]; his motorbike had broken down and he had to rely on the bus to get to Rhyl from Towyn.
Fate, however, played a helping hand and the couple were destined to meet again.
Phil said: "It was a very foggy night and the bus was late. Beryl had waited for a while outside the Regent but had got fed up, she thought she had been stood up and went with some of her friends to the New Inn.
"When I got there, I went up to the dance hall and she wasn't about.
"I remembered her saying about her friends going to the New Inn so off I toddled there. I saw her with her friends at the bar, she had a glass of cider in her hand.
"One of her friends said ‘oh look, someone has turned up here for you’ and the glass of cider dropped out of her hand. ‘Oh, oh,’ she said. ‘Nice to see you again.'
"We stuck together like glue after that."
The couple courted for two years before marrying in St James's Parish Church in Holywell in 1963.
Phil and Beryl, who is from Holywell, moved into Phil's parents' house whilst they saved to buy a property of their own.
Their first home was a three-bedroom detached bungalow, built for the couple just off St Asaph Avenue, Kinmel Bay, that cost £2,600.
The proud parents to Steven and Jennifer have shared many happy memories together over the years.
Phil said the one thing that forms a thread throughout their whole marriage is their caravaning holidays.
"When we first got married, we had our honeymoon caravanning for a fortnight in Devon and Cornwall," Phil said.
"It was so good that we carried on.
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"When we first did it, it was a hired caravan and then we bought one of our own and it was brilliant. What a way to spend holidays! We'd go to Devon, Cornwall, the North of England, East Anglia, South of England - we'd go all over the place. We bought various caravans over the year and we have still go one now.
"That has been a thread running right the way through our marriage. It has been a wonderful experience for us all."
Phil said the secret to his and Beryl's happy marriage was "being honest" and "respecting each other".
"It has got to be a shared equal partnership," Phil said.
"We have shared everything and we respect each others point of view and listen to what we have to say.
"We have arguments and disagreements and anyone who says they have been through this long of a marriage without any arguments or disagreements are telling lies. It is a partnership, and, in my opinion, it has to be an equal."
Over the years freelance photographer Phil has worked for Jim Parry pictures freelance press agency in Rhyl and North Wales Press Agency in Prestatyn.
In 1977, he joined forces with Bob Hewitt to take over the photographic side of North Wales Press Agency, freelancing for the Daily Post [under contract]. He then went freelance on his own and worked for The Daily Post, The Western Mail and latterly, for the Rhyl Journal.
He described Beryl as a 'pocket rocket'.
"She is only 4ft 10 and a half," he said.
"She'd thump me if I left out the half!
"She is one of these ladies that doesn’t suffer fools gladly. She is extremely generous and kind-hearted.
"She would never say a bad word about anyone unless they deserve it and then she would be brutally honest," Phil laughed.
"I am incredulous that it has been 60 years. When we celebrated our 50th I said to Beryl, 'do you think we will get to 60?' And she said 'I doubt it' but here we are.
"We are delighted to have got this far."
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