A HEADINGTON couple who met at a local dance 60 years ago have celebrated their diamond wedding.

Stanley King, 83, and his wife Doreen, 82, married at St Mary the Virgin church, Iffley, on June 20, 1953, a few months after the young Miss Rose, as she was, caught the 24-year-old apprentice engineer’s eye across Holyoake Hall in Headington.

Mr King, who completed two years’ national service in the Royal Navy after the war, remembered: “We had a dance and at the end of the night, we collected our push bikes and I made sure she got back to her house OK in Freelands Road.”

As a 23-year-old canteen waitress at Morris Motors car factory in Cowley, Mrs King served Sir William Morris.

Her husband began as an apprentice mechanic at Morris Carriages in Cornmarket Street, but became an engineer at Pressed Steel after they married.

The couple moved in with Mr King’s mother in Grays Road, Headington, before moving into a flat in Town Furze in 1954. They then lived in a bungalow in Wheatley before settling into a house in Headington Road for 20 years.

In the 1970s, Mr King was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and was forced to retire at 65.

The couple, who did not have children, moved to McMaster House sheltered accommodation in Latimer Road six years ago, where a diamond wedding party was held yesterday.

Mrs King, who is her husband’s carer, said the secret to their happy marriage is “simply helping one another. It’s all about give and take.”