A pair of best friends who have taken a photo booth picture together every five years since they were ten just snapped their 50th anniversary photo.
60-year-olds Keith Laughton and Martin Dowle went down to Skegness Station where they crammed into the booth again for the tenth time; grinning for the camera to commemorate 50 years of friendship.
Keith, a retired probation officer took the first picture together with his friend Martin, a paramedic, in a Woolworths in Lincoln.
Then by chance they found themselves back in the same shop five years later and decided to recreate the original.
“It’s always good,” says Keith. “The excitement building up to it and then reliving our memories from age ten going back into a photo booth.”
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It became a fun tradition for the pair which they’ve kept up for half a century of pictures.
“It’s weird to look back at two ten-year-olds with sweet little innocent faces and then look at the others and think about everything you go through in life together,” said Keith, keeping his British-born natural reserve.
“Our lives haven’t been anything other than two normal guys—we haven’t done anything spectacular or catastrophic, we’ve just always kept that friendship.”
“It’s getting harder and harder to wriggle ourselves in and perch on tiny tiny seats but it was good and now we’ve been doing it for fifty years.”
The pair met when they were just eight after Keith went to introduce himself to Martin after his family moved to his village of Bardney, Lincolnshire.
“We’ve been reminiscing and thinking of everything that’s happened between each five years – it gets a bit scary when you think about it but intermingled with everything that’s been going on we have always managed to get that picture done every five years.”
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“We don’t live in each other’s pockets or have to talk every week—it’s just a friendship that’s stood the test of time.”
Keith still lives in Bardney; Martin now lives in London.
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