AN OVINGHAM couple who met in a dance hall are still in step after 65 happy years together.

James and Joyce Wilson joined hands and hearts on the dance floor in 1950 and married a year later.

The couple met when James (85) was carrying out his national service with 607 squadron at RAF Ouston, now Albemarle barracks.

Transport was laid on to bring girls from surrounding villages to regular dances at the barracks, and one such girl was an 18-year-old Joyce.

James asked Joyce for a dance and the rest, as they say, is history.

Every weekend after that, James would cycle or hitch his way to Ovingham to take Joyce to the dance halls of Prudhoe.

The couple were married on December 29, 1951, at St Mary the Virgin Church, in Ovingham.

Joyce (84) said: “It was a bright, sunny day but cold and as I left my house, my veil blew up and caught on a rose bush.

“Rather than pull my veil off, my dad cut the roses from the bush and I went to my wedding with roses in my veil. It was a lovely day.”

After a reception at the local WI hall, the newlyweds honeymooned in James’ native Scotland before settling in Ovingham.

An apprentice mason before his National Service, James found work as an estate mason with the National Coal Board.

He went on to work for Scottish and Newcastle Breweries and in 1964, joined the Tyneside Scottish Territorial Army as a piper.

Joyce settled into a career as a care worker for nearly 20 years.

In 1967, James was involved in a car crash and injured his right leg, which forced him out of work.

However in 1970, the couple became landlords of The Ship Inn in Ovington, assisted by Joyce’s niece, Daphne Threadgold-Reay.

After seven-and-a-half years at the pub, the couple returned to Ovingham and James went to work for RJB Mining until his retirement in 1995.

James and Joyce have a son, Graeme, grandson Michael, grandaughter Caoimhe, and three great-grandsons, Ethan, James and Maximillian.

To celebrate their landmark anniversary, niece Daphne took the couple for lunch where they were surprised with a bunch of flowers and the bill already taken care of by staff at the cafe.

Speaking of their 65 years together, Joyce said: “It is a lot of years with the same person but we always get on with each other.

“We support each other all the time.”