It’s Saturday night in 1965, and I am getting ready for a night out at the Locarno Ballroom in Bradford, with my best friend Barbara. Off we go, two happy seventeen year olds, ready to dance the night away. As the night draws to a close, Barbara goes off to dance with someone, leaving me alone. A young man comes up and asks me to dance too – and I say yes.

When it’s time for the last dance of the evening, I look round in vain to try and spot Barbara. But it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. I can’t find her anywhere. My newly-met friend, Peter, offers me a lift home. What do I do? Risk it with someone I’ve only just met, or chance it, going out onto Manningham Lane on my own on a Saturday night? Anyone from Bradford will know that’s not really an option. So I accept his offer and go with him. He is really quite nice. Before I go in, he asks if I would like to go out again? He says he will come round on Sunday evening at about eight o’ clock.

Sunday night comes, and I sit there in my glad rags, waiting for him. The minutes tick by, quarter past, half past, quarter to. At nine o’ clock I come to the conclusion he’s changed his mind. I decide to get ready for bed and go upstairs and read. Our bathroom is downstairs, so when I hear the loud knock on the front door, I open the bathroom door to listen, and am mortified to hear my dad come out with these words: “Come in for a minute, she’s just gone to get ready for bed.“

He must be thinking all his Christmases have come at once! I quickly get dressed again, and – somewhat sheepishly – go out in the hallway to meet him. He apologises profusely, and says his mother had not woken him, when he fell asleep after his evening meal. As a farmer working outside all day, I could forgive him for that.

That night, we went out to Rawdon for a drink, and thus began the road to a long and happy relationship. We’ve had our ups and downs, but in July 2020 we celebrated our forty seventh wedding anniversary.