A LONG-SERVING councillor and her husband both awarded for years of service to the community have celebrated 50 years of marriage.

Councillor Eileen Harris and George marked the golden milestone with a party of old friends and family at their home in Kings Avenue, Greenford, last weekend.

George, 75, said: “Communication is the answer to a long marriage. You’ve got to sit and talk, if you don’t talk you’re wasting your time.”

“And to make life fun,” added Eileen.

The 71-year-old, Conservative for Northolt Mandeville ward since 2002, is the only serving councillor to have represented residents in all three constituencies.

She won the by-election in the then Labour stronghold of Waxlow ward in Greenford in November 1988, only to be overthrown by Labour at the next election. But she returned to Ealing Common a few years later in 1998 until 2002.

As well as politics, Eileen was a governor at Belvue Special School, and at Stanhope Primary School for 30 years until she stepped down as chairwoman earlier this year. She now sits on the board of governors at Greenford High.

George is chairman of the voluntary committee managing Dormers Wells Lodge care home in Southall. And they have both been involved with Ealing’s Duke of Edinburgh award since the 1990s.

The Rotary Club presented them with a certificate in 2007 for their ‘vocational service to the community’ which is proudly framed in their living room.

Eileen and George married in the small village of Checkendon, Oxfordshire, in 1962. They moved to Greenford in 1969 with two small children Colin and Tracy, first to Windmill Lane, Southall, and later Kings Avenue.

The couple ran a green grocer’s delivery service, delivering eggs, fruit and vegetable to hotels and people’s homes around Harrow, Pinner and Greenford.

Tracy frequently featured in the sports pages of the Gazette as a successful judoka winning at national and international level.

“We’ve had a good life really. But if I didn’t like animals there would’ve been trouble,” he said.

Eileen says her other passion is animals. She helps walk neighbours’ pets and has rehomed dozens of stray dogs over the years.