A WOKINGHAM couple are making 2020 a year to remember: not only have they celebrated their 80th wedding anniversary but this month they are both marking their 100th birthdays.
Family members joined Alex Moss in his garden on Monday to help him celebrate his centenary, while his wife Mabel will reach the same milestone on Sunday, June 28.
The couple grew up in Rotherhithe in London, where the met as teenagers in the 1930s. Alex was a member of the Boys’ Brigade, playing the drum in its band, and Mabel belonged to a group similar to the Girl Guides.
Both clubs met at a church known locally as the Great Hall that was used as a community centre.
Rachel Slocombe, who works with Crossroads Care that helps look after the couple, said: “They met when they joined each other’s social circles, they knew each as youngsters.
“But Alex was in love with another young lady, and asked Mabel to pass messages on to her. It was not an instant romance, it developed.”
Love did blossom though, and Ms Slocombe said that Mabel had kept a poem from all those years ago: “In it, he wrote how he hoped to make her happy for the rest of her life. He had no idea how long that would be.”
Called up to fight in the Second World War, Alex proposed to Mabel and the couple married in February 1940. Later that year, Mabel was moved to a mothers home in Wisbech, near Cambridge, where their first son was born. They went on to have another son and two daughters.
Initially posted to London, Alex spent much of the war in North Africa, Italy and Austria.
After being demobbed, Alex joined the civil service, but Mabel had a variety of jobs, including working for biscuit maker Peek Freans when she left school at 14.
“She always wanted an office job, and finally got one with the civil service,” Ms Slocombe said.
They moved to Wokingham in 1973, where they got stuck into the community.
Ms Slocombe said: “On retiring, they worked as volunteers at Wokingham Hospital, where Mabel ran the WVS Coffee Shop and received a medal for her long service. It’s amazing, she did it off her own back.
“Alex did a taxi service to help people get to their appointments.”
The couple, who still go to sleep holding hands, are still reasonably independent, despite Mabel going blind.
“She is amazing,” Ms Slocombe said. “They are both in reasonably good health, they enjoy doing jigsaws and they can get out and about.”
And one of their daughters is always on hand, acting as their main carer.
To mark Alex’s birthday, family came over to see them in their garden, maintaining social distancing.
In addition to four children, they have six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
And Ms Slocombe said that their marriage has lasted because “they are totally committed to each other, no question.
“Mabel told me that the secret of a long life is good genes, and the secret of a long marriage is give and take.”
