Edinburgh couple plan to bring home fifty-year-old wedding cake

Ron and Rhondda Leckie have spend 50-years happily married and are looking forward to returning to their first home in Edinburgh.

A wedding cake which newlyweds took with them from Corstorphine to California half a century ago will return home to the Capital to mark the couple’s 50th wedding anniversary.

Ron Leckie grew up on Rankeillor Street in the 60s and his family owned a well-known coal business operating from St Leonard’s depot.He met wife Rhondda Leckie from Clerwood in 1965 on a blind date organised by friends during his final year of study at John Watson’s School on Belford Road.The pair soon fell in love and stayed together while Ron studied engineering at Heriot-Watt University and Rhondda worked in the civil service at St Andrew’s House.Shortly after Ron’s graduation, the young couple married in a small ceremony at Greyfriars Kirk which they fondly remember as a “wonderfully historic location to be married in”.Ron said the day was a “great traditional Scottish wedding” but added: “At that time, kilts were not so popular and I wore the tails, now wish I had worn the kilt.”At the reception, the couple had an elegantly frosted wedding cake purchased from Wahlberg’s Bakery in Pathhead.

As custom dictates, the couple held on to the top tier for use at their first child’s christening.

Ron and Rhondda Leckie are all smiles at their wedding in 1970.

The newlyweds kept the precious cake packed safely away in a tin in their Edinburgh home hopefully awaiting news that Rhondda was expecting.However, as the years passed this news did not come.

But in the meantime, the couple took on an adventure of a lifetime after Ron was offered a job in California through American company, Signetics.

The adventurous pair moved from their home in the Capital to Silicon Valley, south of San Francisco in 1976 where they have lived ever since.

Ron said: “My wife kept the cake in a sealed tin and it emigrated with us.”While setting up their new life in California the old tin continued to gather dust and then 18-years after being married a delighted Rhondda gave birth to a baby girl named Susan.

The beautiful cake remains intact more than 50-years after it was made.

Ron said: “By that time, the cake’s top tier was well aged and we did not even consider using it.“It was not till we started to plan celebrations for our Golden Wedding anniversary we thought it would be good to blow the dust off the cake tin and share the story.”

Opening the 50-year-old tin together the Leckie family found the white wedding cake had yellowed over the years and was now a beautiful golden colour.

While nobody was brave enough to sample the well-aged dessert the family thinks the golden cake is beautifully symbolic of Ron and Rhondda’s love on the eve of what is their Golden Wedding anniversary.

While they are currently unable to fly out due to lockdown restrictions, the Leckies are adamant the cake will eventually make its way home to the Capital from the Golden State.

And Ron and Rhondda will celebrate their love together as they did 50-years-ago at home in Corstorphine surrounded by friends, family and a golden wedding cake.

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