DIAMOND couple Percy and Gladys Mott are celebrating 60 happy years of marriage today with some precious advice for newly weds - use a bit of sense!

And at a special anniversary celebration at Bacup Leisure Hall, Percy's former band Besses O' Th' Barn from Whitefield will be playing and Britannia Coconutters will be dancing.

The couple, of New Line, Bacup, met in 1937 when they both worked at Rawtenstall Shoe and Slipper Company, Lee Mill, Bacup. They married two years later at Wesley Place Methodist Church, which used to stand on Newchurch Road near the junction with New Line. A couple of months after marriage, Percy joined the RAF and was stationed at Kirkham and North Wales. He also played with the station band and the dance band.

After leaving the forces he played trumpet with a dance band at the former Embassy Ballroom in Bacup and joined Besses O' Th' Barn Band where he played soprano cornet.

Percy, 90, worked for Bacup Shoe as a press man and Gladys, 81, worked in the office of John Willie Johnson's factory at Lee Mill for 22 years.

They have a son Peter, who lives in Bacup, a daughter Jennifer, now in Kent, and two grandchildren Freddie, ten, and eight-year-old Christopher.

Gladys said: "My advice for any newly weds is stick at it, you will always have the snags but use a bit of sense!"

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