And more than 65 years later, David and Yvonne Isherwood, whose friendship soon blossomed into love, have celebrated their diamond wedding.
Mr Isherwood, who was famously pictured in May 1945 collecting his Red Cross parcel from the SS Vega at the end of the Occupation, first met Yvonne during his training as a cabinet maker.
‘We met when we first started work,’ Mrs Isherwood (81) said.
‘We were both very young, about 15. I was learning my trade as a dressmaker upstairs and David was a cabinet maker downstairs. We used to meet and walk to Gaudin’s to get the orders for coffee and cakes and rolls.’
As well as their lunchtime meetings, David would also walk his future wife most of the way home from work, even though it was out of his way.
‘I lived at Samarès and he used to live in town,’ Mrs Isherwood said.
‘We used to walk along together to Howard Davis Park and then I would cycle off and he would walk back.’
When they could afford it, the pair enjoyed going to the cinema together, and at 19, David proposed.
‘We had been friends for so long,’ said Mrs Isherwood.
‘He said it would be a good idea to get married. We were very fond of one another.
‘He asked my father’s permission but my father said, “There’s no way she is getting married at 19”, so we got engaged at 19 and married at 21.’
The wedding was on 6 October 1955 at St Mark’s Church with Mrs Isherwood making her own wedding dressing and going-away outfit.
Her father, who was a pastry chef, baked the wedding cake and the couple enjoyed their reception at the Royal Hotel.
They honeymooned for a week in London and a week in south Wales.
‘We caught the mail plane in the afternoon,’ Mr Isherwood said. ‘All the family were on the balcony waving us goodbye.’
The couple, who have two children, Caroline (39) and Colin (50), and one grandson, Jordan (21) set up home in a flat above Collin’s the printers overlooking the Royal Square, before moving to a house at First Tower.
They later moved to a home at La Grand Pouclée in St Helier.
Mr Isherwood, who went on to work for the Waterworks for 28 years, said that friendship was the solid foundation for their 60-year marriage, adding: ‘We are really good friends. We very rarely fall out. It’s been a great life.’
Key events in the year David and Yvonne Isherwood got married included:
- The United States got involved in the Vietnam conflict
- Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, setting the American civil rights movement in motion
- Newspapers in Britain were not printed for a month due to a strike in Fleet Street by maintenance workers
- The first Guinness Book of World Records was published
- The Mickey Mouse Club, a variety TV show, aired for the first time
