Hastings couple mark 65th wedding anniversary on Boxing Day

Derrick Dengate, 88, and his wife 85-year-old wife, Dee, marked their Blue Sapphire wedding anniversary on Boxing Day with friends and family.

The couple received a card from King Charles III congratulating them.

They also got a card from the late Queen, Elizabeth II five years ago when they marked 60 years of marriage.

The couple have lived their whole lives in Hastings. Derrick was born at the Fernbank Maternity Home and Dee, in Buchanan Hospital.

They first met on Valentine’s Day in 1958 when Dee attended a dance where she worked.

Derrick was out in the Old Town with friends who had heard about the dance so went along.

While Dee was dancing, Derrick ‘excused’ the gentleman she was with and then danced with Dee. They spent the evening together and Derrick walked Dee home.

Derrick said it was the ‘best thing that ever happened to him’.

Dee worked at an electrical factory on the Ponswood industrial estate and Derrick was serving in the army. He left later that year, working at the gypsum mines in Mountfield, near Battle.

The couple got married at St Matthew’s Church, in Silverhill, St Leonards and their first home was a top-floor flat in Magdalen Road.

Their son, Mark, from Bexhill, was born in 1960.

The couple had the honour of seeing their son receive an award from the High Sheriff of East Sussex in February 2015 for ‘showing great courage leading to the apprehension and conviction of a criminal’.

The couple said their secret to their long marriage is that ‘they have always got on together’ and marriage is about ‘give and take’.