A MARRIAGE of 77 years and a 100th birthday has been toasted by a couple from East Lancashire.

Adamina Eatough turned a century last month.

And she just finished the celebrations in time for a new round of parties, this time in honour of her 77th wedding anniversary to her husband Bill, 99.

The couple now live in Florida and moved to the United States during the 1920s depression.

Their double celebration featured prominently in an American newspaper.

Mina is from Darwen and met Bill in 1915 while playing whist.

They married three years later and paid extra shillings to have their carriage decorated with flowers and pulled by white horses instead of brown.

When they emigrated, Bill opened a barber's shop in Rhode Island while Mina took a job as a weaver.

They had two daughters, Margaret and Virginia, and later opened a fish and chip shop where all the family helped out.

They retired in the 1960s and bought a home in Florida.

But they still keep in touch with their relatives in England and have visited many times.

"We never drank and we went to church every Sunday," was Mina's answer in the American paper to the secret of their long and happy marriage.

"We never went to bed angry. We always went to bed loving one another."

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