WHEN their eyes met across the crowded dance floor of the Bell Hall on Orford Lane more than half a century ago, Winifred and Derek Taylor knew they'd be together forever.

Derek, a stonemason, asked 17-year-old Winifred for a dance and the rest, as they say, is history.

The couple, of Fairfield Street, courted for five years before tying the knot at St James Church in Latchford in 1956.

Now 55 years since they first met, the pair are celebrating their golden wedding anniversary with their daughter, son and four grandchildren.

Winifred, aged 72, who was a cashier at Marks and Spencer, said: "I'd never seen him before until he asked me to dance and I thought he was very good looking so I agreed.

"It just went from there really because we were so attracted to each other. We're still as much in love now as we were then although we've swapped our dancing for bingo."

Asked about the secret of achieving a long and happy marriage, Derek, aged 73, says: "Never go to bed on an argument, that's very important.

"I love Winifred as much as I did when we first met but now we have a lot of happy memories that we've shared too."