Couple stay in step for 60 years

Every time Kath and Harry Freeman waltz around the ballroom at Bilston Town Hall they are transported back to the 1940s.

The octogenarians met as teenagers at the Church Street venue – and they are still dancing there to this day. The couple, of Redwood Road, Coseley, both worked at Sankey's metal firm in Bilston but their paths had not crossed before that Saturday night in 1947.

Kath was 15 and 19-year-old Harry had just returned from serving with the RAF.

And now Kath, 80, said: "We still sit in the same corner of the hall that we used to back then with our friends."

Kath and Harry, 84, married in 1952 at Holy Trinity Church, Bilston, and they have a daughter Ann, 58. They say they have used their dancing skills to impress at family parties and on cruise ships.

Kath said: "We loved holidaying on cruise ships and when we got up to dance people would go mad – they asked us if we were professionals and if we owned a dancing school."

Bilston Town Hall was closed for 14 years but the grand ballroom reopened in 2008 after a £2.5m transformation.