A SHARED Christian faith helped to bring together a Gorleston couple who celebrated their golden wedding today.Norman Toll, 78, and Peggy Parke, 74, met each other in the late 1940s through their involvement with the former Gospel Hall in Great Yarmouth.

A SHARED Christian faith helped to bring together a Gorleston couple who celebrated their golden wedding today.

Norman Toll, 78, and Peggy Parke, 74, met each other in the late 1940s through their involvement with the former Gospel Hall in Great Yarmouth.

Mr Toll said many friendships were formed among those attending religious services at the hall.

They married at Bethel Gospel Hall in Gorleston on September 2, 1960 and held their reception at the Matthes Rooms in Englands Lane.

He added: “Like every marriage, we have our ups and downs, but we both believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as our salvation and we are both together as Christians and have a common outlook and common practice of serving the Lord.

“We could not have had the life we have had if we did not belong to the Lord Jesus.”

Keen artist Mr Toll taught at the old Hospital School in Yarmouth, the Technical High School in Gorleston (now Oriel High) and East Norfolk Sixth Form College before taking early retirement in 1988, aged 56.

Mrs Toll was a nurse at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital before working at the old Yarmouth Hospital where she was in the Ear Nose and Throat department. She then became a district nurse, attending to patients in villages surrounding Yarmouth, including Belton and Lound.

The couple live in Lynn Grove and have two children - Alec, 49, who works for the RAF in Oxfordshire and Rachel Surrell, 46, a nurse who lives with her family near Leicester.

They also have two grandchildren, Nathan, 19 and Naomi Surrell, 16 and a pet dog Daisybelle, 11.

To celebrate their special anniversary, they will be having a meal with family and friends.