FILM lovers Marina and Brian Lugg are celebrating their own Hollywood romance as they mark 60 years of marriage since falling in love at the cinema.

Although the Chipping Sodbury couple cannot remember what film they were watching at Thornbury Picture House when Brian, 78, and his friends threw sweet wrappers at Marina, 77, and her girlfriend, the scene was immediately set for a life together.

Mr Lugg, originally from Thornbury, said: “I think I was more interested in the girls than the film.

“That was it. We went on our first date and were engaged six months later.”

Mrs Lugg, who has lived in Chipping Sodbury all her life, said: “After watching the film me and my friend were walking outside when someone said ‘are you going my way’ and I remember saying ‘I could do’.

“After that, Brian would cycle from Thornbury to Chipping Sodbury every night after work at Sweet and Co Butchers to see me.”

The couple married at St John’s Church in Old Sodbury on November 5, 1955 and held a reception for 60 guests at the Portcullis Hotel in Chipping Sodbury. They lived in a flat on Horse Street before moving into a house on Rounceval Street on Christmas Day that year.

For a year before the couple had the first of their four children; Linda, 58, Janette, 55, Nigel, 53, and Amanda, 47, they rekindled their love of the cinema by working together at The Embassy picture house on Hounds Road in Chipping Sodbury.

“I was a projectionist and Marina was an usherette,” said Mr Lugg, a retired fireman for BAE Systems and Rolls Royce in Filton.

“It was a part-time job we both did every evening and at weekends to bring in some extra money but it meant we were together.”

Although the couple’s early married life was spent caring for Mrs Lugg’s mother, the pair, who moved to Bennetts Court when it was built in 1989, have enjoyed numerous exotic cruises in keeping with their movie meeting.

They have enjoyed caring for all nine of their grandchildren and now five great-grandchildren and are excited about the imminent arrival of a new baby in the family.

“We have done a lot of things together,” said Mrs Lugg, a former cashier at Tesco in Yate who has supported her husband as secretary to Horton Social Club, chairman of the Yate Fifty Plus Leisure Club and bingo caller at Shire Way Community Centre.

Added Mr Lugg: “We are involved with lots of activities and try to keep mobile which could be the secret to our long marriage. Either that or we are just lucky.”

The couple are celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary today with a family meal.