A DIAMOND pair will be celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary on Thursday.

Pat and Mike Olive, both 80, who live in Basingstoke, are celebrating 60 years of marriage after getting married in Portsmouth at St Saviour’s Church on December 7, 1957.

Mike said: “We got engaged in the back row of the Savoy Cinema, Portsmouth in 1956, just as Moby Dick was charging the screen.

“Pat’s maiden name was Watson, which was also my mother’s maiden name. We were also born on the same day, January 15, 1937 and one of Pat’s first names is also Olive. We were meant for each other.”

The two met through both of them knowing a Hall family, who lived around the corner from where Pat lived in Northern Parade in Portsmouth.

Since Pat’s mother would not let Mike in, he would wait outside on the pavement, which led to an unexpected encounter with some royals.

Mike added: “One day, in 1956, I was standing all alone and a large black car approached me. It stopped beside me and to my surprise inside were their majesties, The Queen and the Queen Mother. We smiled and waved to each other, after I bowed and then the car drove off. It is one of my most cherished memories.”

The pair moved to Philadelphia in America in 1963, where Mike was a design engineer with the Piasecki Helicopter Corporation. He was then transferred to the General Electric Space Division, and was part of the design team for the Viking and Voyager probes, as well as some of the equipment for the Apollo missions to the moon.

They moved to Basingstoke in 1970 to be with their parents, where Pat worked in child care and Mike was a development engineer with Vickers Medical Engineering.

He left there in 1975 to get a degree at the University Winchester, and started training at Basingstoke hospital to become a nurse in 1978. Before the final exams in 1983, Mike suffered a spinal injury, ending his nursing career.

Pat and Mike have had four children, two sons, Kim and Jonathon, and two daughters, Debra and Elizabeth. They have five grandchildren and now have 31 great-grandchildren. Elizabeth died in 1987, just three weeks before taking her final exams to become a nurse.

The couple used to do a lot of work for the cubs in Portsmouth in 1950s, for 49th Portsmouth’s HMS Belleraphon’s Own Wolf Cub Pack, which was sponsored by the Royal Navy. The Cubs would now be roughly aged 60, and they are keen to hear what has happened since then. If you or anyone you know was a member, call 01256 417 468 or e-mail mike.olive@ntlworld.com.