Sweethearts marry 47 years on (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Sweethearts marry 47 years on

11:00am Thursday 16th August 2012 in News By Hannah Upton

A COUPLE who met as teenagers at a Lakeland beauty spot have tied the knot after a chance encounter reunited them 47 years later.

Angela Shadrach and Ian Hutt first met at Fell Foot Park, on the shore of Windermere in 1965, when she was 15 and on a Girl Guide trip, and he, aged 19, was visiting from Ulverston with friends.

Their brief holiday romance led to them staying in touch for three years, with Angela, now 62, visiting Ian, now 65, in his native Ulverston from her Wirral home.

But when Ian joined the Merchant Navy, they were forced to go their separate ways, and it was a chance phone call which brought them together more than four decades later.

Ian said: “Sadly I lost my wife Marian in 2009 after a long illness. Just before she died I rang the occupational therapy department at Barrow to get some assistance for her climbing the stairs.

“When the therapist I was talking to said she was called Angela Shadrach the name registered, but not for one minute did I consider it could be the same girl. When she said it was her, you could have knocked me down with a feather.”

Angela said: “I took a job in Ulverston in 2007, although it had nothing to do with Ian being here. I was just looking for another job and, coming up to retirement, I wanted to move somewhere nice to retire.”

In another twist of fate, Angela was set to leave Cumbria and move back to the Wirral.

She said: “I had been unable to sell my house and it became unviable to stay renting in Ulverston. I had handed my notice in and was on my way home.”

She called Ian to say goodbye when they agreed to meet for a farewell meal. The rest is history.

Ian said: “It felt as if no time had passed in between us and felt very natural to be together. “When we met up it was the same dark-haired, brown-eyed girl, still as lovely as ever and we got on like a house on fire.”

Angela returned to the Wirral, but the couple continued to see each other and, in June this year, gathered with their loved ones at the spot where they met so many years ago to get married.

They held their reception at the National Trust cafe, previously a boathouse where Ian housed a kayak as a teenager.

Now living between their homes, the couple have just come back from a honeymoon cruise to St Petersburg.

Angela said: “It was a massive coincidence that brought us back together. We feel like it was just meant to be.”