From pen pals to 60 years of marriage bliss

A couple who met as pen pals celebrated 60 years of marriage yesterday.
Ralph and Ingrid Turner celebrated 60 years of marriage on ThursdayRalph and Ingrid Turner celebrated 60 years of marriage on Thursday
Ralph and Ingrid Turner celebrated 60 years of marriage on Thursday

Ralph and Ingrid Turner who have lived together in Langford for the duration of their marriage are as happy now as they have ever been.

They celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary with a dinner party at Stratton House last weekend which was organised by their two sons, Ian and David.

Ralph, 91, said: “We have had a very happy 60 years together – the main reason is that we give and take with everything.

“There is no his or hers, it is all ours.”

Ralph served during the Second World War and eventually ended up in Berlin, picking up German as a second language.

However, he found after the War he began to lose the language but was determined to maintain his fluency.

He was advised to do more writing in German and that was when he decided to join a pen-pals club.

“I found the club in a magazine and was very surprised to receive 100 letters!

“The biggest surprise though was that only one of the letters was written in German. This was from Ingrid who was a nurse in Devon at the time,” he said.

The two of them carried on writing to each other for a number of months before they met for the first time at King’s Cross in London.

Before they knew it Ralph and Ingrid were walking down the aisle on February 5, 1955 and haven’t looked back.

They have lived a full and frantic life and are now enjoying a well-deserved retirement.

One of Ingrid’s aspirations was to one day go and see Niagara Falls.

She was able to do this after Ralph inherited some money he wasn’t expecting and they travelled from one side of Canada to the other.

Ingrid said: “It really was a holiday of a lifetime and I would recommend it to anyone. I even dipped my hand in the Pacific Ocean.”

Ralph has thrown himself into village life and was a Parish councillor for 21 years as well as being the Langford correspondent for the Biggleswade Chronicle.

Ingrid, who is originally from Germany, said: “Moving to England was one of the best decisions I ever made.”

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