Chesterfield couple's love for each other shines as brightly as the day they were married 60 years ago

Stanley said: “I said to my mate: ‘I know that girl, she used to go my school, isn’t she lovely?

He said to me: “I dare you to go and ask for a dance and as we were dancing she dared me to kiss her and that was it’.”

Sweethearts Stanley and Jean were 17 when they began courting and tied the knot a year later at Chesterfield Crooked Spire Church where Jean’s sister Annie and cousins Molly and Kathleen were bridesmaids.

“We had a lovely wedding,” said Stanley. “It was the 50th wedding anniversary of my wife’s grandad and grandma and we had a joint celebration at the Red Lion on Vicar Lane.”

The couple, who are both 78, have been dancing ever since that rock n’ roll encounter in Chesterfield’s Market Hall. They are avid ballroom dancers and next year will be returning to the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool where they have danced numerous times.

In their thirties they joined the Kyrygma folk dance group and met members of a German dance group from Ober-Ramstadt with whom they became long-standing friends and enjoyed visiting and hosting them.

Stepping out along the Coast to Coast Walk, the Pennine Way and the Cleveland Way saw keen walkers Stanley and Jean clock up more than 1,000 miles in the first five years of their sixties.

Their trusty campervan, which they’ve had for 21 years, has taken them as far as southern Italy and they’ve just returned from a holiday in Anglesea.

When they are not on their travels the couple, who live in Newbold, enjoy jigsaws, reading and singing at the Gospel Chapel in Littlemoor where they are churchgoers.

Stanley said: "The love between us has never diminished. We have always loved doing the same things.The love of Jesus Christ has sustained us too.”

Family members and church leaders will join Stanley and Jean at a meal in the Olde House, Chesterfield, to celebrate their diamond wedding anniversary on September 30.

They have a son David, two daughters Janet and Carole, 12 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren. Stanley said: “Our family support us when we need it and we support them when we need it.”

Jean and Stanley have lived in Chesterfield for most of their lives and were in the same class at William Rhodes infants school; “We still remember some of the teachers, “ said Stanley.

On leaving William Rhodes Boys School at 16, Stanley worked in his grandfather’s business, Mellors Ice Cream.

After marriage, Stanley got a job as a conductor on Chesterfield Corporation buses, worked at Lamp Caps, became a bus driver for East Midlands Transport and later worked at a foundry in Sheepbridge.

When he was made redundant from the foundry, Stanley studied science at Leicester University and graduated with an honours degree. He taught in primary schools in Essex and later worked as a supply teacher in many schools in north Derbyshire.

Jean, who left Hunloke Secondary School when she was 15, first worked at Blackburn Sweets factory and sold the confectionery on Chesterfield market. Over the years she was employed at Valet Service, at Robinsons as a sewing machinist and at Credit Data.