A Chippenham couple who met in their teens will celebrate their golden wedding anniversary in America.

Sheila and Eddie Lye, of Montague Close, will travel to Los Angeles, Palm Springs and Las Vegas in June.

They also celebrated their anniversary, on Saturday, March 23, with family at The Well, near Devizes.

Mr and Mrs Lye met when they both worked at Station Hill, Chippenham.

At the time Mrs Lye, 70, was a hairdresser at Margery King and an actress in a local theatre group called the Starlets, while Mr Lye, 72, was a telegram boy for the Post Office.

Mrs Lye, who was 16 when they first started dating, said: “He used to ride up and down the hill on his bike and one day he parked his bike outside the shop, came in, took his helmet off and asked me out on a date.

“In the Starlets we used to perform the Black and White Minstrel Show at the Theatre Royal in Bath, and because that took up so much of my time he joined too. He suddenly cottoned on he wasn’t seeing me very often and they were short of men, so they roped him in.”

The couple have two daughters, Katrina and Kirsa, and also have three grandchildren – Luke, Olivia and Harriet.

They were married at St Paul’s Church, Chippenham, on March 23, 1963, and moved to Melksham to be nearer to My Lye’s new job at the Jack Dean Oil Company.

Later Mr Lye got a job as a heating engineer and eventually became self-employed.

Mrs Lye said of her husband: “His secret has always been never to go to bed on an argument. I think we work as a team and we’re very much alike. I might be thinking something and then he will say exactly what I was thinking of.”

Mr Lye surprised his wife by taking her on a short break to the Lake District where they had spent their honeymoon.

Mr Lye said: “In my office I have a card from my wife. It says God must have thought her special to give her someone like me and I think exactly the same. She’s my life.”