A British couple who married in Malta 50 years ago have spent the last week here as part of their Golden Wedding Anniversary celebrations.

Sylvia and Alex McLeod met in Plymouth in 1961 at the Stonehouse Royal Naval Hospital, where Sylvia was serving as a Royal Naval nurse and Alex, who was an officer with the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA), had been admitted with appendicitis.

Sylvia had lived in Malta for four years, from 1951 to 1954, with her family while her father – a Royal Navy Chief Yeoman of Signals – was based at Manoel Island. The family’s home was 58 Two Gates Street, Senglea and Sylvia had been a pupil at the then Royal Naval School Tal-Ħandaq, now the Liceo Vasselli.

In August 1961 Sylvia, by then engaged to Alex, was posted to Malta to work with Royal Navy families in Kalafrana. Alex soon followed, having been given – at his request – a posting to the RFA Fort Duquesne. As Malta was temporarily home for both of them, Sylvia and Alex decided they would like to be married here, at St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral in Valletta, but they hit a snag!

Although Sylvia had been brought up as an Anglican, she had been baptised as Roman Catholic, and Archbishop Michael Gonzi, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Malta, refused to give permission for her to be married according to the rites of the Anglican Church. The couple was advised to appeal directly to the Papal Court in Rome for specific permission to marry in St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral in Valletta and this permission was eventually granted.

Sylvia and Alex were married in the Anglican Cathedral on 24 March 1962 and spent the first few months of married life at 51 Lapsi Street, St Julian’s, before returning to the United Kingdom in the October.

Over the intervening years they have made several trips back to Malta and, of course, coming here for their “Big five-oh” celebrations was a must!