KEEN long-distance runner Derek Davies has notched up some notable milestones during his lifetime – and he has just achieved a diamond prize to add to the collection.

Mr Davies, aged 81, has just celebrated 60 years of happy marriage to his wife, Heather, 80, surrounded by their family, relations and friends.

This included son Mark, daughter-in-law Jackie, and three grandchildren – Clint, Rhys and Rhian.

The couple’s romance bloomed among the roses at Williamsons’ nurseries at Hereford, now Wyevale in Kings Acre, where they both worked.

Though the Korean War was to intervene, the couple married not long after Mr Davies completed his National Service and returned home.

“We both worked together on the roses,” recalled Mr Davies, who was born in Builth Wells and had moved with his family to Burghill at the age of 12.

“I was working on the landscaping, but during the summer I was put on to rose budding.”

Luckily for him, this was where his wife-to-be Heather, a Leominster girl, was working.

“We were sweethearts then I went off to Korea,” he said.

Mr Davies was wounded and ended up in an American hospital before he returned to Hereford.

The couple soon married at the Baptist Church in Commercial Road, and, because wartime rationing was still in force, they held their reception in a room at the former Racehorse pub in Widemarsh Street.

Mr Davies had returned to work at the nurseries but he had a burning ambition to run for Wales – as a teenager he had been selected for county teams representing Herefordshire schools.

He remembers having a “little chat” with his wife about taking a postman’s job so that he could train for endurance running.

While it meant a drop in pay, Mrs Davies was happy for her husband to pursue his dream.

“I achieved my ambition to wear the Welsh vest,” he added. “I ran in a crosscountry, a marathon, and a veterans’ run for Great Britain in Romania.”