Great Western Railway returns wedding cake favour 65 years on
Then bride-to-be made cake shared by hundreds of British Railways colleagues
Carbis Bay couple George and Margaret Stone were presented with a special wedding anniversary cake on Thursday as Great Western Railway (GWR) returned a kind-hearted gesture made 65 years ago.
On the evening before her wedding on 5 September 1959, bride-to-be Margaret, with the help of her sister Janet, made a cake which was shared by 300 colleagues of the Western Region of British Railways.
It was a token of thanks for the many hours she had spent waving at the London-Penzance steam trains as they thundered past her home in Wiltshire.
Even on their wedding day, Margaret and George had broken off from their celebrations to wave at the train from the family farm in Easterton, near Devizes.
As the couple celebrates their 65th wedding anniversary today, GWR say it was 'only right' they returned the compliment by presenting them with a two-tiered cake at Carbis Bay station.
GWR Head of External Communications Dan Panes said:
“This story really has captured our hearts the more we have researched it. Margaret was obviously a real train fanatic as a young girl and built up quite a rapport with the drivers, who would sound the train whistles as they rolled by.
“It’s like something out of The Railway Children. The fact she baked a wedding cake for railway colleagues was a wonderful gesture, so we were determined to mark their 65th wedding anniversary by returning the favour.”