Couple celebrate 60 years of marriage

Alfred and Margaret Wheble grew up as neighbours and have known each other all their lives.

'It has gone too quickly,' said Alfred. The couple's mothers were close friends, their brothers went out together and they played with their friends in the streets around their homes in Great Dover Street in Southwark, south London.

The childhood friends went to the same school, though the sexes were strictly separated, and continued to see each other when they began work.

Margaret (86) left school at 14 to work in a stationery company which made envelopes. Alfred became a bell boy in the Carlton Hotel in London before he trained as a tinsmith. He was called up to the Territorial Army in 1939 as the Second World War loomed and was in the Royal Engineers at Dunkirk the following year.

His return from the retreat prompted Margaret to write to him the next time he left for duty as a sapper.

Her letters continued through the four-and-a-half years he was abroad.

The couple began to go out to shows during Alfred's leaves and became engaged.

Alfred (87) was demobbed in 1946 and their marriage took place on the sunny Sunday of June 22 the next year at St Matthew's Church in New Kent Road in south London.

Their first home together was in Kennington, south London, before they moved to New Malden.

They stayed in the Surrey town for 27-and-a-half years and ran a drug store.

Retirement brought them to St Thomas Drive in Pagham 23 years ago.

Alfred said: 'My mother's side of the family lived in Pagham and we were always down here visiting them and we liked the place.'

He worked in Butlins for 14 years '“ the last three of them as a dance host. It is a hobby which the couple have excelled at over the years.

They were frequent competition winners with a full cabinet of trophies.

Alfred continues to glide around a dance floor with a partner for weekly sessions in modern sequence and Latin dancing at nearby Pagham Village Hall and a holiday camp in Hayling Island.

Margaret finds it difficult to keep up the hobby.

They are meeting their friends and many relatives to celebrate their anniversary as well as spending a few days on Hayling Island.

Margaret explained: 'We have had a good life, with all our dancing.

'We used to go away to hotels where they had competitions.'