A couple have danced through 60 years of marriage despite health issues.

Wally, 87 and Vera Allen, 85, celebrated their Diamond Wedding anniversary with a slice of cake last Thursday (23) after meeting on holiday in 1953.

Wally worked for the Herts Advertiser for most of his life as a compositor until he retired in 1993 and Vera worked for a car insurance company until she was 60.

They have three children, Frances, Jeffery and Elizabeth, and had lived in London before moving to Woodfield Way in Marshalswick.

Vera now lives in a nursing home in Hatfield after suffering from a stroke 18 years ago, Wally said: “She has been ill ever since her stroke and I looked after her for nine years at home but it got too much for me.

“I used to visit her every day and then the children said I should stop because I get sad about it all.

“I now go once or twice a week, but we have been very happy all of our lives and we loved going out to ballroom dance.”

Wally met Vera when he was 23 and she was 25 while on holiday in Jersey and they have been together since. He said: “I went on holiday with some lads and she went with some girls and we instantly liked each other so I asked her to dance.

They married two years later in Edgware and spent their honeymoon in Guernsey, the neighbouring island to where they met. Wally said: “We went mad on our honeymoon; we spent about £80 which was a lot of money back then.

“We had a nice hotel which had ballroom dancing and we had a really good time.”

He added: “She [Vera] doesn’t really often realise I’m her husband but otherwise over the years we have been very happy and we have always been in love.”