Andy and Joyce Hutchinson from Forbeshill are marking 65 years since they got married in Kinloss
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A COUPLE from Forbeshill are celebrating their blue sapphire wedding anniversary this month.
And Andy and Joyce Hutchinson (both 87) partied with three generations of their family, 65 years to the day they got married.
Former serviceman Andy is originally from Northern Ireland.
He said: “I met Joyce while stationed at RAF Kinloss from 1955 to 1957. Dances at Forres Town Hall were attended every Thursday and Saturday evening in those days. That was where we met.”
On arriving at RAF Kinloss, Andy often saw Joyce in the Church of Scotland canteen where she worked as a volunteer on Friday evenings, serving the airmen.
He said: “I didn’t have an opportunity to speak to her apart from asking for tea and a sandwich until one night, returning from the dance in Forres, I sat beside her on the bus to Kinloss. I discovered she lived in Glebe Cottage in the village and invited her to an airmen’s dance at the station in the coming week. After that event, I walked her to the village and our meeting’s progressed from there!”
After Andy’s posting to RAF Oakington in August 1957, he spent the next two years travelling up from Cambridge to visit Joyce. During his leave in September 1957, the couple got engaged.”
They got married in Kinloss Church on Joyce’s 22nd birthday, on April 21 of 1959, with a reception in Culbin Sands Hotel in Findhorn. They honeymooned in Stirling and Edinburgh.
Andy was then posted to Cyprus.
“Joyce flew to the island in September,” he said. “We spent two-and-a-half years on that posting and it was during our time there that our son Peter was born in the British military hospital at Dakehlia.”
On their return to the UK in 1962, Andy was posted to RAF Auldergrove in Northern where his wife and baby son joined him.
“We enjoyed our time in Ireland,” he said, “but within six months I was on the move again, this time to RAF Binbrook near Lincoln. It was during our stay there that our daughter Patricia was born in the little market town of Louth.”
Postings to RAF Cottesmore and Germany followed, and after a three year stay in Germany Andy arrived at RAF Wittering near Peterburgh.
His final posting was to RAF Lossiemouth where he spent the last three years of his 22-year service.
The family settled in Forbeshill, Forres and Andy joined the civil service, working in the Inland Revenue office in Inverness.
“Peter was 14-years-old and Patricia 10 when we settled in November 1974,” said Andy. “Joyce’s mother lived in Forres already, having moved from Kinloss in 1971. It was an ideal place to make roots for the future.”
On leaving school, Patricia joined the Ministry of Defence civil service and worked at RAF Kinloss until her daughter Lisa was born.
Peter joined the Light Infantry in 1969 and served for three years, including in Cyprus where he visited the hospital in Dakhelia where he was born.
Andy said: “Our grandchildren Lisa and Nathan attended Forres academy. Lisa is now teaching at Greenwards Primary School in Elgin and Nathan is presently at university in Edinburgh studying Maths and Physics.
“Our great grandson Aaron is attending Greenwards, where his sister Ava will be joining him at the end of the summer holidays.”
Both Andy and Joyce are retired now. Andy spends his free time fishing on the River Findhorn.
“Joyce attends coffee mornings in Forres Town Hall where we met all those years ago,” said Andy. “She also attends the senior citizens club in Forres and joins her companions on bus runs in the summer.”
The pair were toasted by their family at the Mosset Tavern on Sunday, April 21.
And the secret to nearly seven decades of marriage?
“We’ve enjoyed a very happy married life,” said Andy. “If you ask me to explain our long life together; I would say perhaps we were just lucky!”
