A couple who founded a Witney church are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.

Tom and Nancy Hodge, who set up the Elim Pentecostal Church, met in London, where Mr Hodge was training to be a minister. His wife-to-be was training as a nurse.

They married in her family's home town on the island of Guernsey on March 1, 1958.

They came to Witney in 1971, when Mr Hodge joined the Witney Press, in Marlborough Lane, as the manager of its lithography department.

Mr Hodge, originally from Liverpool, was honorary minister at the Elim Church, in West End, when it opened in 1975.

Mrs Hodge, now 75, was a school nurse but then trained as a health visitor, practising in the Witney area for six years before retirement.

They are now members of the Welcome Evangelical Church.

Mr Hodge, 74, works part-time at the town's Focus DIY store.

They have one son, Stephen, who has a chartered surveying business in Witney, and two daughters, Catherine, a teacher in Cardiff, and Judith, working for an estate agency near Weston-super-Mare.

The family, including six grandchildren, are expected to join them for the anniversary this weekend.