At a time when more couples are opting for live-in relationships and marriages are ending in divorce, comes an inspiring story of love and commitment from a couple who is celebrating 57 years of wedded bliss today. Rev Hillary Clifford, 79, a Baptist minister and his wife Lucy, 77, of Union Village, San Fernando, credit their faith in God for their enduring love. Their advice to other couples is to put God first. In 1954 Rev Clifford, then 22, saw and fell in love with 20-year-old Lucille Nurse. They said after 57 years of marriage, their feelings have not waned. "God has been good to us," Rev Clifford said when he and his wife visited to the Guardian South Bureau recently.
The Cliffords celebrated their anniversary yesterday with a thanksgiving service at the Calvary Baptist Church, Rushworth Street, San Fernando. Recalling the good old days when they lived at Indian Walk, Princes Town, Rev Clifford said a few months after he fell in love with Lucy, he made her his wife. "I saw her and talked to her and told her that I loved her. I inquired where she lived and went to visit her." He said after a few visits, her father, who was a minister of the Brethren Church Gospel Hall, told him: "Young man, you cannot be coming to my house like this. You have to marry her." Lucy's father asked him to write a letter asking for her hand in marriage. "But I was a bit 'mannish' (arrogant) and I told him, I was not writing any letter that he had to take my word I was going to marry her.
"I also told him that she was not of my faith and as a Baptist, I was head of the house, and so she had to be baptised in my church. He accepted it with good faith and I kept my word. Within a few months we were married." The couple have one son, Andre, who lives in Canada. Asked about their secret for success, Rev Clifford said: "What can I say. I accepted Jesus Christ when I was very small and asked the Lord to choose a wife for me. Since then, God has blessed us. I am almost 80 years and I still drive. I do everything for myself." His wife, whose memory is fading, said as the last of 13 children, she saw the lives of her parents and siblings lived and applied it to her own marriage. She said not once in 57 years was she ever tempted to walk out of her marriage.
