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UK Wedding News

04/04/2013

Teenage Sweethearts Marry After 60 Years Apart

A British couple who were teenage sweethearts have reunited and married – sixty years after they split up.

The relationship between Eileen Billington (78) and her new husband Warner (79) originally came to an end following parental disapproval, according to the Daily Mail.

Eileen Billington, née Lockley, met Warner when they were 16 and 17 respectively; they were neighbours, and it was Warner who spotted his first love as she walked by with her sister, Margaret.

"I saw her and I was smitten. I got a pair of garden shears and pretended to cut the hedge outside my parents' house," he explained. "When they passed, I said, 'Hello Margs, who's that with you?' and we got talking."

Shortly after, Warner enlisted in the RAF and was stationed three hours away, in South Wales. He wrote to Eileen and asked her on a date – after that, they wrote to each other every day. Two years later, the couple planned to marry, but Eileen's father said they were too young.

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Warner said: "I thought Eileen's father was wrong, but I didn't propose. Somehow, we just parted after that. It was my fault, I just went my own way."

In 1956, Eileen married Jack Lenton. The couple ran a hotel in Newquay, Cornwall and had a son and a daughter together. Jack died in 2006. Warner, meanwhile, married a woman named Gillian in 1957. They had three sons and were together until Gillian's death in 2010.

Eileen and Warner did not see or speak to each other after they split, but a friend of Warner’s used to stay at Eileen’s hotel and she would always ask how Warner was. After the friend told Eileen about Warner’s bereavement they picked up the phone and spoke again for the first time in six decades.

A year later, Warner plucked up the courage to ask Eileen to visit him at his home in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands. Following the approval of both families, Warner moved in with Eileen in Newquay. The couple were married in December 2011.

Speaking about their relationship, Warner said: "We both had very happy marriages, but anyone who tells you that they don’t remember their first love is fibbing. Both Eileen and I often wondered about what might have happened if things had worked out differently. But we don’t dwell on it now."

While Eileen added: "It’s as though we have never been apart. As well as loving each other, we are good companions, just as we were when we first met. In fact, we are just like an old married couple."

(JP/CD)

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"A British couple who were teenage sweethearts have reunited and married – sixty years after they split up."