The Royal Golden Wedding

EVERY wedding anniversary is special, but for golden East Lancashire husband and wife Bert and Kathy Hunt, theirs is a really royal event.

So much so that today they were at Westminster Abbey with today's other Golden Wedding pair, the Queen and Prince Philip, celebrating their 50 years together along with couples from all parts of the country who were also married on November 20, 1947.

Kathy, 71, was in a smart new Marks and Sparks coat for the occasion. But gone from her wardrobe is one item that made her marriage to Bert really a day to remember - the wedding present the Queen gave her.

As she got ready for her marriage to transport worker Bert at Four Lane Ends Congregational Church, Blackburn, 50 years ago, Kathy penned a letter of congratulations to the bride-to-be Princess Elizabeth.

And what a reply she got by registered post - a full-length designer housecoat in red taffeta that was part of the royal trousseau!

Not only that, Bert was sent a rug by the royal newly-weds.

Yet, if luck played a part in them choosing the same date for their wedding as the Princess and newly-created Duke of Edinburgh, so it also did in them receiving their royal wedding presents. Kathy's housecoat was one of 25 items of clothing that the New York Institute of Dress Designers had sent to Buckingham Palace as a gift to 21-year-old bride-to-be.

The Princess kept five for herself, gave another to a royal secretary who married the same week and decided to share the rest with nineteen 21-year-old brides married on November 20.

Seven were automatically chosen as they were named Elizabeth, but there had to be a ballot for the remainder among nearly 300 other brides who were also wed that day in 1947 - and Kathy's name was one of the lucky dozen out of the hat.

"It was really beautiful," said Kathy, of The Meadows, Billington.

"You could imagine the Princess coming downstairs in it in a morning, but not me. It was the sort of thing a princess would wear.

"The funny thing is I can't remember what became of it. All I know is I no longer have it. "Anyway," she laughed, "I'd have a struggle to get in it these days."

As for the royal rug, that, too, came to Mr and Mrs Hunt out of a royal draw for recipients.

"It was one of 101 rugs sent to the royal couple as a present by an Indian merchant in Calcutta called Sir Abdul Halim Ghuznavi," explained 81-year-old Bert.

"We were lucky enough to get one of the them. But I'm afraid it wore out years ago."

Bert and Kathy are no strangers to the royals' anniversary events at Westminster Abbey.

Twenty-five years ago, they were invited to the thanksgiving service there for the Queen and Prince Philip's Silver Wedding and were guests afterwards at the Savoy Hotel in London at a special party for scores of "same day" couples.

And in September, they were among the "royal" Golden Wedding couples who attended a thanksgiving service at Blackburn Cathedral.

After this year's Westminster Abbey event, Bert and Kathy will travel home for their own party at the Hurst Green home of their daughter, Barbara.

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