A COUPLE who met at a dance more than 60 years ago are celebrating a landmark anniversary.

Dennis and Dot Wakefield met at Weaverham Village Hall in 1951, when he was 22 and she was 24, and they got married three years later, on June 19, 1954.

They tied the knot at Holy Trinity Church, in Castle, and went back to Dennis’s family home in Romanes Street for their reception, where Dennis and Dot have lived ever since.

Dot said: “We only had a quiet wedding but it was a nice day.”

Dennis said: “You couldn’t afford it in those days.

“The most I earned was £7.10s picking potatoes.”

When the couple met Dennis was working at Vale Farm, in Whitegate, for the farmer Billy Hough.

He went on to work for Cheshire County Council for 40 years, working in school grounds maintenance and growing and nurturing shrubs and standard trees for the county.

Dot said she had done a variety of jobs, including working as a cook at St Nicholas Catholic High School for 15 years and working at the Red Lion pub, in Hartford for 12 years.

Dennis only retired when he was 76 and Dot left the Red Lion when she was 71.

The couple have three children, including daughter Karen and twin boys John and Peter, and three grandchildren, Emma, Laura and Natalie.

They plan to celebrate their diamond wedding anniversary by taking their family out for dinner. Their secret for a long and happy marriage is the art of the argument.

Dennis said: “The secret is falling out and falling in again.”

Dot added: “Everyone who lives together has their little things that you disagree with.

“People that say they never fall out, I don’t believe them.”