Goosnargh and Calder Vale couple celebrate their diamond anniversary

Faith and worship helped Tom and Margaret Hardman’s love blossom and now they are celebrating 60 years of marriage.

As devout Christians, the couple met at a youth Sunday school meeting whilst in their late teens in Lancaster in 1956. They married two years later at Westhouse Methodist Church in Ingleton. They lived in a farm in Calder Vale and later moved to Goosnargh.

They have four children, 12 grandchildren and six great grandchildren.

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“We met at Sunday school and married two years after that. We lived in a family farm in Calder Vale until we bought another farm in Grimsargh. We had milk rounds in different parts of Lancashire.”

The couple are active members of the Free Methodist Church, which has branches in Garstang, Catforth, Penwortham and Bamber Bridge.

Tom credits their faith as being one of the secrets to their long and happy marriage.

He added: “My father told me, ‘a family that prays together, stays together.’ That is what we have always done and we are still going.”