South Warwickshire village celebrates Diamond day for committed pair

John and Pat Tarver were showered with gifts and tributes at the occasion at Newbold Pacey Hall - including a card from the Queen an arrangement of white roses by their friend Pam Cook.

Over the years, 83-year-old Mr Tarver has served as bell-ringer, organ boy, keeper of Newbold Pacey’s churchyard, church treasurer, vice-chairman of the parish council and church warden.

Mrs Tarver, 80, well-known for her support to the church and the Women’s Institute, has knitted scores of Nativity scenes and Easter tableaux for charity and she regularly knits soft jackets and bonnets for premature babies at Warwick Hospital.

The pair, who met at a wedding at Brandon in the early 1950s, made a pact when they married to share all the household chores.

The couple have lived in the same house with their eight hens in Newbold Pacey since their wedding day.

One condition requested when they became tenants there was that Mr Tarver, who has tended to the churchyard since he was 11, would continue to do so, making him the third generation of his family to have cared for the space over the past 115 years. Under his charge, it has regularly won the Stratford Best-Kept Churchyard competition.

Mrs Tarver said of her husband: “He really is the perfect man. I can argue with him but he’ll never answer back” - although she said his only minor fault was “a slight weakness for fruit-and-nut chocolate”.

Although Mr Tarver gave his wife a hammock ten years ago as a golden wedding anniversary present, the couple admit that, with their busy schedule and involvement in Newbold Pacey life, neither looks likely to get much use from it in the near future.