Golden couple Ronnie and Doreen Long have more reason than most to celebrate the start of the new Millennium.

For the husband and wife were set to welcome in the New Year today by holding a party for family and friends as they also mark their own 50th wedding anniversary on New Year's Eve.

They married at St Colomba's Church in Great Horton on December 31, 1949 - not realising the great event that was to come 50 years later.

Today friends, family and neighbours were set to gather at their home in Cheltenham Road, Wrose, Shipley, for a lunchtime get-together for their golden wedding and long-awaited Millennium celebrations.

Mr Long, 74, said: "It's one of those things. We certainly didn't pick the date with the intention of celebrating our golden wedding anniversary on the same day as the Millennium.

"It just happened like that. We met at a dance and the date came along. We booked it and got married. We didn't so much pick that date as it picked us. It was a Saturday, which suited us, even though we were thinking about waiting until the summer."

Mr Long and his wife, 70, who still run their own business making lengths of cloth for suits, were the only couple to be married that day at St Colomba's.

And they admit that getting married on New Year's Eve has caused them a few headaches over the years. "We should have known really but we didn't think of that at the time," said Mr Long. "We've found over the past 49 years that we couldn't have picked a worse day for booking somewhere to hold a function. You can't go anywhere because all the places are holding a do of their own.

"We have booked places in the past for our wedding anniversary but we've always found it difficult and in the end gave up.

"This time we're going to have a lunchtime spread for our neighbours, friends and family" - daughter Susan, 49, son Graham, 46, and their four grandchildren.

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