Devoted couple celebrate 67th wedding anniversary

Devoted couple celebrate 67th wedding anniversary

3 July 2019

AFTER 67 years of wedded bliss, Downpatrick couple Aidan and Frances Vaughan still hold hands when they watch television together.

The devoted pair celebrated their latest matrimonial milestone last week with a special dinner at the Burrendale Hotel in Newcastle with their seven adult sons and daughters.

Aidan, now aged 89 and Frances at 86, want to make each passing year count and ensure that their anniversary was marked.

Their marriage has created an ever-growing lineage of 16 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.

“I would do it all again tomorrow as Aidan has been a great husband and good father,” said Frances.

“He was always very respectful and gentlemanly and never raised his voice to me or the children.”

And as for Aidan, when asked what attracted him to Frances, he answered: “Well, she was a very good looking girl and still is. She was always very kind and good company.”

Aidan was 21 and Frances a mere 19 when they married in St Patrick’s Church on June 24, 1952, after a three-year courtship.

He was from Killyleagh and worked alongside his father as a shoe and boot maker. Frances — née Burns — was from the Rathkeltair Road off Saul Street in Downpatrick, and attended the old Commercial School, the beginnings of what is know South Eastern Regional College. 

The couple met, just as many of their local peers did, at a dance in St Patrick’s Hall, which was better known as the Canon’s Hall.

Aidan recalls: “We always went to the dance on a Friday night as there was really nothing else to do. Sometimes if you were lucky and had a few bob, you would get a lift into Downpatrick with Willie Burns’ taxi and other nights you just used to cycle in.”

He remembers it cost one shilling and sixpence for the dance, or half a crown for the cinema, and of course, being the gentleman he is, he always paid.

Frances was learning cookery at the college and says that once her teacher and fellow students knew she was getting married, they all worked and baked together to make her wedding cake.

“Our wedding breakfast was a salad and I know my mother worked to store a few items away for the breakfast,” she said. “There were only 10 or 12  people at the breakfast as there weren’t any big weddings in those days. 

We honeymooned for a few days in Dublin.”

The couple soon became parents with children arriving every one or two years and finished with their youngest son, Aidan, who has Downs Syndrome.

They have lived in their Russell Park home since 1951.

“Aidan has been our greatest gift,” beamed Mrs Vaughan, “and we couldn’t imagine life without him. He really is the best boy in the world and he makes this house a home.”