In the company of family and friends, Janet and Ray Rickets celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary on Saturday 25th April with a Special Mass at Our Lady & St Alphege celebrated by former parish priest Canon Roche during which Janet & Ray received a special blessing from Father Richard.

After the ceremony everybody was invited to a spread laid out in the parish hall.

With appetites satisfied, Tony O'Sullivan took the microphone to spell out why the occasion was so special.

"In today’s society, there is a lot of cynicism about marriage. Groucho Marx once said that things were getting so bad in Hollywood that brides were keeping their bouquets and throwing away the groom. Unfortunately such an attitude is gaining ground on this side of the Atlantic also. That is why it is so encouraging to be here today to celebrate the Golden Wedding Anniversary of Janet and Ray.

"As Canon Roche said in his homily, the two of them grew up in this parish. Janet attended La Sainte Union Convent here in the city and, after leaving school, worked for Burnham & Brown the solicitors. Ray did National Service in the army before following a successful career with Wessex Water. They were both parishioners in St Alphege’s and met through the social events such as the tennis club which the parish organised in those days. They were married in St Alphege’s 50 years ago today at 11 am on 25 April 1959 by Canon Kelly who was then Parish Priest. Janet and Ray can look back with a great deal of pride on their 50 years together. As parents, they have reared a family from which they can take great satisfaction and they are the proud grandparents of four boys and five girls.

"The most striking characteristic of Janet and Ray is that each of them is a giver in a world where so many are merely takers. This is evident to everyone who knows anything about our parish. Janet has been involved with the Guides and Brownies since they first started in the parish in 1969. She was Assistant Guider till 1978 when she became Leader or Brown Owl as they say in the Guides. In 1993 she became the District Commissioner for the Guide Association. An interesting little twist to this story is that the present District Commissioner, Diana Shinn, was enrolled into the Association as a little Brownie by Janet herself! It is a tribute to Janet that the Guides and Brownies are flourishing in the parish today under the leadership of her successors, Michel Holmes and Diana Shinn. Just how flourishing can be seen by the establishment of the Rainbows, set up recently by the Williams sisters with 20 members.

"These groups meet in the Parish Hall, which leads me to another point for which we can all thank Janet, namely taking responsibility for the hiring out of the Hall over the years. Just how onerous and essential this task is can be judged by the fact that the Hall earns the parish over £7,500 per year. As if this wasn’t enough, she is still very involved in doing the flowers for St Alphege’s and helping to organise the cleaning rotas for both churches in the parish.

"Janet could never have been so committed if Ray had not supported her throughout. Theirs has been a partnership of equals for all their time together. And this is not always easy. George Burns said at his Golden Wedding celebrations that in the whole 50 years he had been married to Gracie, he had never once contemplated divorce. Murder yes, but never divorce.

"Ray has been just as dedicated to the Church. For some forty years he was Chairman of the Parish Fete Committee, a position that was responsible for raising several thousands of pounds each year for parish funds. He was also a member of the Knights of St Columba and, in this position, was responsible for providing each Christmas the very popular Nativity Crib in Stall Street from 1949 until 2007 when repeated acts of vandalism finally forced it off the street and into a nearby shop window. "Ray was delighted to see the new school being built because, apart from the obvious reason of seeing a modern Catholic school in the parish, it relieved him of the responsibility of collecting the rents for the allotments on the land the school is being built on.

"Ray still organises the Gift Aid Scheme for the parish, an activity that earns St Alphege’s over £4,000 per annum. In addition, he is the person who checks that the parish churches and halls conform to the Government’s Health and Safety Regulations. Amongst all these commitments both he and Janet between them still fit in membership of the Parish Pastoral Council, the Parish Finance Committee and, until it wound up recently, the Parish Social Committee.

"This brief review of their involvement in St Alphege’s gives only a passing insight into their contribution to the life of the parish. They have helped so many of us in ways too numerous to mention, from preparing the Hall for parish socials, to changing light bulbs (no mean task when you see how high the ceiling is here!). They have organised food for events and tidied up after parish occasions. Now Ray, I know you and Janet have arranged a family get-together after today’s celebration but I don’t suppose you could hang around for a while afterwards and help to put everything away, could you?

Such a huge contribution to our parish was recognised recently when Janet and Ray were presented at Mass by Fr Richard with a Papal Blessing for all their hard work over the years – much of which, of course, they are still doing!

"Janet and Ray have not just been generous with their time. Their generosity of spirit has extended even to an occasion like this where, instead of presents, they have said that donations would be welcome towards our fund for equipping the new St Alphege’s Hall. A basket is available at the back of this hall today for any such contributions.

"Freidrich Nietzsche put his finger on the key ingredient of a successful marriage when he said that it is not a lack of love but a lack of friendship that makes for an unhappy marriage. We only have to look at Janet and Ray to see how much friendship as well as love is present between the two of them. The secret of their success is their teamwork and this is evident in everything they do".

Tony O'Sullivan concluded by expressing the deep gratitude of Father Richard and all the people for everything that Janet and Ray had done for the parish over the years, and offered them sincere congratulations on the very special occasion of their Golden Wedding Anniversary.

Janet & Ray with family.

(Photos by Anne Creevy)