Diamond wedding couple Avril and Roy Nelson are celebrating 60 years of marriage with a show of support for the appeal to build a Maggie's Centre in Nottingham . LYNETTE PINCHESS meets the couple to find out why.

IT has been difficult couple of years for Roy and Avril Nelson.

First, their daughter-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer, then Avril had bowel cancer.

Both had surgery within months of each other, in 2008, and are making good progress.

Avril, 80, said: "It was a shock – very sudden. You think there has been a mistake."

One of their two sons, John, was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma over 25 years ago.

Avril's daughter-in-law had surgery, followed by chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Avril, who lives in Sherwood, had part of her colon removed. Surgery was successful, but heart failure during it showed she had two faulty valves.

There's a major occasion ahead for Avril and 84-year-old Roy.

The couple, who hail from Eastwood, celebrate 60 years of marriage on April 29.

They decided to donate £60 each to the appeal to build a centre for cancer patients and their families in the grounds of City Hospital. Though the £500,000 community fund-raising target has been met, the Post continues to lead the campaign for a Maggie's Centre in Nottingham.

"Because we are celebrating our diamond wedding – 60 years – we thought it appropriate," said Roy, a wartime Marine, who took part in the Normandy invasion on Sword Beach in 1944.

They met when Avril was 17 and Roy 21, in 1946.

He'd seen her at Eastwood Lads' Club, where she was secretary. At a church Christmas fete, he asked her out in front of a boy she was friends with, Des Smith.

Roy said: "We went to the Rex cinema and I paid for the three of us. Avril sat in the middle."

Des was later a guest at the wedding at St Mary's Church, Eastwood, in 1950.

Avril combined motherhood with work as a typist while Roy joined the police for 30 years, before nine years at Severn Trent's Hucknall Road depot.

The total raised by the public and Maggie's Nottingham campaign board stands at more than £1.25m. A total of £1.9m must be raised for building to start, hopefully by the autumn.

Send cheques, payable to Maggie's Centres, to Kate Jervis, Maggie's (Nottingham Appeal), 8 Newton Place, Glasgow G3 7PR. For information, contact Sarah Macey on 0115 8718693 or e-mail sarah.macey@maggiescentres.org

lynette.pinchess@nottinghameveningpost.co.uk