Platinum couple inseparable after 70 years

A couple married for nearly three- quarters of a century still cannot bear to be apart, decades after they met walking through a Black Country town.

Harry Bryan visits his love Vera at Island Court Care Home, in Bourne Street, Coseley, every day. She went into the home two years ago after being forced to use a wheelchair when she broke her hip.

And the couple, who are now aged 92 and 90, yesterday celebrated 70 years of marriage with a platinum anniversay party buffet and singer at the home.

Mr Bryan said: "We have always loved our time together and I visit every day. It's brilliant that we've been together this long and had such good children."

A 17-year-old Harry met Vera while strolling around Bilston and they were married six years later at Christchurch in Coseley.

The pair, who are great-grandparents to three, were as inseparable then as they are now, working together at Sankey's works in Bath Street, Bilston, until the outbreak of war. The couple were temporarily forced apart while Harry served in Italy and Germany in The 7th Queen's Own Hussars as a mechanised tank driver.

He later returned to work at the former Phoenix Glass Works in Bilston. At that time, Mrs Bryan was working for Cannon, making gas cookers and fires.

She said: "We no longer worked together but we used to love to go dancing, Latin American, any style really, when we were together. The secret to our happiness though is family.

"Even if we had a quarrel we would forget about it because we had such a good family." Daughter Tina, who has brothers Michael and Dean and sister Dallas, said: "Mum couldn't bear for him not to be around."