July
2008
Double celebration for Felixstowe couple
St Felix RC Church parishioner Wally Shaw celebrated his 101st birthday together with his wife Margaret (99 years young), family and friends today (13th July).
Wally Shaw was born in 1907, the year that saw the beginning of Mahatma Gandhi’s civil rights movement in South Africa, suffragettes storming the Houses of Parliament, music for “The Teddy Bear’s Picnic” composed, the beginning of experiments using cathode ray tubes to try and transmit images via electronic television and the introduction of the first automatic washer & dryer. All this a year before London’s Summer Olympics and the production of the Model ‘T’ Ford!
World War II saw Wally in service onboard HMS Warspite – a Queen Elizabeth-class battleship – in the Mediterranean. During the Battle of Calabria she was credited with achieving the longest range gunnery hit from a moving ship to a moving target in history - approximately 26,000 yards.
The day turned out to be a double-celebration, as Parish Priest Fr David Hennessy presented Wally and Margaret with a special Diocesan Certificate commemorating their 70 years of marriage.
The couple first met on the beach in Felixstowe, where Wally promised that he would teach Margaret to swim – a promise which he failed to keep, much to her continued amusement. Fr David told the gathering “Many congratulations to you both. You might not know this, but you are the longest married couple in the Diocese of East Anglia”. When asked jokingly if the marriage would last, Margaret laughed, “Well, it’s too late in the day to call it off now!”
| Rate it: |
 Email it
|
      |
|
