A KINLET couple who have only spent a total of one month and one day apart since they met are celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary today.

Lily Preece, who turned 81 yesterday, made Robert Preece, 84, wait until she was 21 before they got married.

The couple married at the earliest opportunity, just a day later on Boxing Day at St John the Baptist Church in Kinlet in 1953.

Mr and Mrs Preece met at a dance in Kinlet in 1951 and both used to be keen members of the Abberley Dance Club.

Mr Preece, a former agricultural worker, said: "Eight years ago Lily unfortunately had a stroke, it stopped her dancing. I still go dancing, I do all the right steps but not in the right order."

They like to go travelling and camping together and have only spent time apart when Mrs Preece was in hospital, when she had a week's holiday in Tenerife and when Mr Preece worked in Worcester for two weeks.

They have two children, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Mr Preece added: "We're spending our anniversary at home. We're not making a big show.

"It's all passed very quickly, it's doesn't seem like sixty years. There's nothing I would have changed."