Special celebration as retired Lancaster farmers mark 70 years of marriage

Married in Brookhouse Church 70 years ago, John, 93, and Margaret, 91, are now active parishioners and gardeners at Holy Trinity Church in Bolton-le-Sands.

An inspirational couple, they are still bowling competitively for Bolton-le-Sands Bowling Club, and Margaret even won the President’s Trophy at Arnside in 2024, and is not afraid to remind people of the win!

Parents of six, grandparents of 17, great grandparents of 29 and recently great great grandparents, they intend to celebrate with a family lunch at the Lancaster House Hotel on Saturday, and then invite friends and neighbours to their home, where Margaret will feed everyone with her renowned cooking – her baking talents perfected as an apprentice baker at Olivers Bakery in Lancaster in the 1940s and 50s.

John was brought up on the family farm in Carnforth and remembers looking down as Brief Encounter was filmed at the railway station in the war years.

Margaret, born Margaret Hill, was raised at Patterdale Farm in Caton, then a home with no electricity or running water.

They met at an Overton village dance in 1951 and fittingly for farmers their first spin on the floor was a barn dance, John’s Ford van (which he shared with his brother Frank!) no doubt adding to his charm.

They started family life farming at Boltongate in Cumberland, later taking the tenancy at Galley Hall Farm in Carnforth for more than 30 years.

John first ran it as a dairy farm before creating a successful flock of prize-winning Charolais sheep.

They have enjoyed a long and well-travelled retirement, visits including the Great Wall of China, South Africa and the Americas, but mostly caravanning with friends in the ‘Safari Club’.

Only 30 couples a year reach this terrific milestone which makes John and Margaret a couple in a million.