12:20pm Saturday 20th March 2010
SONGS around the piano were all it took for one couple to fall so deeply in love that they would stay together more than 60 years.
Sam and Cathleen Dodd, of Plover Avenue in Winsford, first clapped eyes on each other in 1946 at the Greenbank Hotel, Northwich, where a young Sam was drinking with his Army friends while on demob leave.
Cathleen called in for a drink with her parents, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Cath, 87, who was then working as a teacher in Manchester, said: “My parents knew him and we just got talking.
“My father was friendly with the ex-servicemen and invited them back to our house for a singsong while I played the piano.”
Sam, 89, said: “That’s how it started. I fell for her and that was it.”
For Cath, who attended Verdin Grammar School in Winsford, the feeling was mutual.
The couple enjoyed a first date at the 1947 New Year’s Eve dance at the Drill Hall in Darwin Street, Northwich, and married just over two years later at St John’s Church in Hartford.
Dressed in a lavender grey dress, with a pink tulle hat, Cath carried a bouquet of carnations and maidenhair fern to meet her would-be husband on the cold morning of March 11, 1950.
They were forced to take a 10am service because his friends wanted to be done in time to watch Northwich Vics play that afternoon.
Meanwhile the newlyweds enjoyed a three-day break in Blackpool before moving into their first home in Sydney Street, Greenbank, which they bought for £800.
Sam, who went to Darwin Street Boys School in Castle before rising through the ranks of Whiteheads builders, said: “There was no such thing as those fancy weddings and honeymoons they have now.
“No-one could afford to take a long time off work because you didn’t get paid and we were saving up.
“We managed to save £400 towards that house.”
Their daughter Carolyn, 52, came along shortly after, and Sam and Cath worked their way up the property ladder until they were offered the chance of a lifetime.
Cath said: “Sam had always wanted to build his own house.
“We heard the council were selling land in Winsford so we bought this plot for £14,000 32 years ago.
“Sam did all the brickwork, he laid it all out.
“It makes it really special, and this house is something special to us.”
Asked what she thought the key to a happy marriage was, Cath said: “A lot of it depends on your luck, how far you are from trouble and illness.
“I do believe part of it is the grace of God. We have been very lucky.”
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