A WOKINGHAM couple are looking forward to celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary next week, but it won’t be the occasion they’d hoped for.
Bernard and Jean Jones had planned a lavish event with friends, before heading off on a once-in-a-lifetime luxury cruise.
But the coronavirus has meant that everything they’d planned has been put on hold.
The couple are familiar faces to many Wokingham residents, keen dancers they have been stalwarts of the Sunny Saturdays programme for years as well as inspiring others to get on the dance floor with lessons and also keep-fit classes.
It should come as no surprise that the couple met at a dance.
Mrs Jones was with the Royal Ballet Company when she slipped out with a friend to enjoy a night out.
“I was training with the Royal Ballet Company and it was forbidden to go to the dance hall across the road, ballet is a discipline,” she said.
But she has no regrets about going to the jive club: “We took clothing to change into,” she recalled.
“The club was amazing, and my husband asked me to do a jibe. We had our flirtation over the ballroom floor.”
The rest is history.
And the pair have even been dancing around the world – Mrs Jones recalled a holiday to Venice where they started doing a waltz around St Mark’s Square.
“We danced around the whole of the square, until the Blue Danube had been played to the end, we have some fantastic memories,” she said.
And it is this love of dancing that has seen them through thick and thin: “We both have the same interests,” Mrs Jones said.
They are still madly in love with each other. When asked if she has any regrets, she said they hadn’t: “I would do exactly the same thing again. He’s a treasure, he’s been devoted to me all these years.”
The couple married on June 11, 1960, and they had planned to make next Thursday a very special day. But this year has not gone to plan: they were involved in a car crash which saw them have a hospital stay. Now recovered, they’d hoped to treat friends to a riverboat cruise on the Thames.
Coronavirus means the plans are very different. The party is off, their son is in Scotland and unable to travel down and their plans for the luxury cruise, which would have started in Athens and ended in Venice is on hold.
“Our friends can’t come here, instead of it being a fantastic day, we’re looking at an afternoon tea in the garden,” Mr Jones said.
“With the cruise, it could be on hold for another six months, we’re really upset about that.
“2020 has not been a sparkler for us. It started rubbish and it’s got worse and worse.”
But Mrs Jones is full of praise for the support around her during the pandemic.
“We have used Keep Mobile (during lockdown) they have been excellent and we do appreciate them,” Mrs Jones said. “In lockdown, we’re unable to get around as we’d like to. We’re very sociable, and we just have to get on with it.”
