Diamond wedding anniversary couple Vernon and Nella Gay are set to celebrate their 60 years together at a party in their lifelong home of Colerne.

Mr Gay, 82, remembered the first time he saw Nella, 81. He said: “My friend and I looked in through the window of the White Hart at Castle Combe and saw this girl playing the piano. We started talking and arranged a date for the following Sunday. I said that she was going to be mine.”

Mrs Gay said: “If I had known he had said that we wouldn’t be here today. I would have played hard to get. But that was it – we started going out together and we just kept together.

“We have always been quite happy and we never worried about keeping up with the Joneses. We wanted to make sure there was food on our table and that we got by.”

The couple were married on August 5, 1950 and they lived in Colerne High Street until 1954, when they moved to their present home at Martins Croft.

They now boast a large family, with three children – Graham, Andrew and Joanne – 11 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. They also had another son, Peter, who died in 2005 from cancer. Andrew, 46, said: “Mum and dad are always there for us. Now that we’ve had our own families we realise how hard it must have been for them.”

The couple have never had a car and when they courted Mr Gay, who spent 13 years of his working life as a labourer in the underground Ministry of Defence network, travelled the six miles from Castle Combe to see future wife Nella in Colerne two or three times a week.

Mrs Gay, a former home help, said: “I did once try and ride on a motorbike, but never again. It was very scary. We always got by without transport in the end.”

On Saturday Mr and Mrs Gay will be hosting a party for about 100 people in the village hall. Mrs Gay said: “It will be a trip down memory lane – we have our best man coming and hopefully one of my bridesmaids too. It’s going to be quite a party."