TWO people who have given years of service to the ‘Lochgelly Musical’ celebrated their golden wedding on Friday.

Between them Isobel and Rabbie Brown have spent seven decades working on the stage and behind the scenes and they are very popular people with Lochgelly and District Amateur Musical Association members.

Isobel is a Lochgelly lass born and bred but Rabbie is proud of his Lumphinnans and Benarty background, although he has lived most of his life in the town.

The couple, from Henderson Street, recalled this week how they met by chance on a bus.

“It was 1961 and he was coming home from a friend’s in Glenrothes when he sat down and started to speak to me,” said Isobel.

“I was working in the Co-op Jewellers, in Bank Street, at the time and he appeared there and asked me to go to the pictures.” Three years later, on 18th July 1964, they were married at Macainsh Church by Rev Norman Macaskill.

Isobel, after her marriage, worked at Elliot Automation, in Cowdenbeath, but when son Robert was born in 1968, she stopped working and then second son, Lindsay, followed in 1974.

However, when the youngsters started to grow up she went back to work as a doctors’ receptionist in Lochgelly before spending ten years with the Co-op Funeral Service in Cowdenbeath. Latterly she worked in sheltered housing management in Bridge of Earn.

Rabbie was born in Lumphinnans, but largely lived his early life in Ballingry, and started work as a miner at the Minto Colliery, in Lochgelly, before later becoming a depute at Solsgirth Mine and then Castlebridge Colliery.

When the pits shut he changed track and took charge of the in-house postal service at Dunfermline’s Queen Margaret Hospital for many years, although latterly he spent five years as the gardener at the sheltered housing complex managed by Isobel, in Bridge of Earn.

Rabbie was always interested in musicals and joined LADAMA in 1966 and appeared on stage in many productions.

Isobel also got the LADAMA bug and joined up in 1981 and also appeared in many shows.

Both have since helped out behind the scenes and in the 2014 production of ‘South Pacific’ Isobel was the prompter.

Away from the Lochgelly Musical Rabbie enjoyed being a member of Lochgelly Bowling Club for many years and working in his garden, while Isobel helps out at the Cowdenbeath Community Theatre’s annual pantomime productions and enjoys her involvement with a crafts class in the town.

The pair have three grandchildren, Jack, Tegan and Leah, and they were all involved in the golden wedding celebratory party held on Saturday at the Half Way House Hotel, in Kingseat.