PONTEFRACT IN 1980
10th January 1980
BLIND DATE LED TO MARRIAGE
A couple who met on a blind date in 1929, celebrated their golden
wedding on Friday. Mr. Walker Evans and his wife Muriel, of Drivers Row,
off Wakefield Road, Pontefract, were married at Pontefract Parish Church
a year after they met. Mr Evans, aged 73, left school at 14 to work at
the now disused Snydale Colliery, moving from surface to underground
work when he was 15.
After a spell at Ackton Hall Colliery, work was scarce and he joined
the Army in 1926, serving for three years. On his return to civilian
life, Mr. Evans worked as a labourer for a short while before obtaining a
job at what was then Lumb's Glassworks in Albion Street, Castleford, now
United Glass.
WAR SERVICE
He was called up in October 1939, and served with the
Eighth Army in Egypt and Palestine. He returned to the glass works on
demobilisation and stayed there until his retirement nine years ago.
Mrs
Evans, aged 69, left school when she was 14 to work at the former
Robinson and Wordsworth liquorice works at Pontefract. During the war
she worked at the Humber aircraft factory in Ferrybridge Road.
The couple
who have two sons and five grandchildren, celebrated their golden
wedding with a family dinner at the home of their son, Walter, at
Chequerfield. Both are home lovers, although Mrs Evans occasionally
plays whist at Halfpenny Lane Bowling Club, Pontefract.
1980 INDEX
Years
in Focus is researched by Maurice Haigh and reproduced with the kind
permission of the Pontefract and Castleford Express.
