A POPULAR Clydebank couple celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary today – and they're eagerly looking forward to the day they can celebrate properly with family and friends.

Charlie and Alice McIntyre tied the knot at Linnvale Parish Church on July 1, 1960 and have continued to live in the town for the past six decades while raising their two children, Caroline and Kenny.

The pair have been members of Dalmuir Bowling Club since 1987, with Charlie serving as president from 2015 to 2017 – and that's where they plan to hold a proper diamond wedding celebration once lockdown rules are sufficiently relaxed.

Alice worked in the Co-op on Argyll Road, while Charlie served in the Army for two years from 1959 before setting out on a career as a driving instructor and, latterly, in sales.

Asked for the secret of their success, Charlie told granddaughter Kirsty: "When something was broken, we fixed it.

"Relationships need resilience. You need to work at it."

Charlie was only 19, and Alice 21, when the couple met in the famous Locarno ballroom in Glasgow's Sauchiehall Street in 1958.

Two years later they married, and celebrated with a honeymoon in Scarborough, with just £10 to last them the week.

Within months, Alison was expecting their daughter, Caroline, but Charlie returned to the Army and was only given special leave once she was born.

He left the army in 1961 and the couple settled with their young family in Swallow Road, Faifley.

The couple have lived in Perth Crescent in Mountblow since 1985 – though granddaughter Kirsty told the Post that they really should be honorary residents of Blackpool because of the many trips they've made there over the years.

Kirsty said of her grandparents: “There really are no words to describe how wonderful they are, when you see them together it's as if they still met yesterday.

“The love and respect has never changed. Papa still signs my gran’s birthday cards with the same messages and ‘my darling wife, Alice’, that he signed on his letters to her when he was in the Army."

The letters the couple wrote to each other 60 years ago have been kept, in immaculate condition, in a brown leather suitcase – and have been brought out again in recent weeks as their anniversary began to loom large, showing the rest of the family how important communication has been throughout their marriage.

Kirsty added: “They make me so proud, I am in awe of their marriage and devotion to one another and how they hold our family together.

“It hasn’t always been easy – it never is in a marriage – but papa and gran got through so much in the beginning that they have always had a constant reminder of how much they love one a other.

"Gran was pregnant while Papa was in Africa with the army – she didn’t know if or when he would return, and he had to cope with being away from his wife during her pregnancy.

“They take everything in their stride. Even with the pandemic, their approach has just been to appreciate the extra time together and get on with it.”

Charlie and Alice have also been associate members of the 543 Club in Dalmuir since the 70s, where they would socialise with lifelong friends, May and Rusty Russell and Alister and Grace Foster.

The couple celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in the Dalmuir Bowling Club in 2010, but will celebrate their diamond anniversary in their back garden with Caroline, son-in-law Stevie and Kirsty.

They hope to celebrate properly when lockdown eases, but for now Charlie said he is only too happy to spend it with his family, at home.