A COUPLE who met on Christmas Day in a pub near Worcester will be celebrating 60 years of wedded bliss tomorrow.

Elsie and Harold Portman of Suckley Road, Leigh, met in the Fox Inn at Bransford and have been inseparable ever since. Mr Portman spotted his wife-to-be when she walked into the pub.

“I saw her and she had the most beautiful auburn hair,” he said. “I had a weakness for that so I went over to her and asked her for a date and she said yes.”

Mrs Portman, aged 79, said she turned his first proposal down as they both decided to use the money instead to buy a motorbike. “When he asked me that, I thought for a bit,” she said.

“I was about 17 years old and I thought, why don’t we get a bike as I felt I hadn’t done much with my life yet.

“We had such fun on it though and travelled miles and miles all over the country on it so we were glad we made that decision.”

Mr Portman, 88, spent six years serving in the RAF, and also worked for Malvern-based car factory Morgan.

They married at the Crown East Church in Bromyard Road and started married life living at her mother’s house, where they had two sons, Keith and Derek.

“We had a lovely wedding day,” Mrs Portman said. “At the time we were still on coupons but my sister-in-law had got married in August and had a lovely wedding dress. She offered to lend it to me for the day. Later, my other sister-in-law also got married in it too, so it was used three times.”

The couple have proved their wedding vows of ‘in sickness and in health’ after Mr Portman had to be nursed back to health by his wife when he had cancer of the stomach in 1990, which he is now recovering from.

Mr and Mrs Portman will be celebrating at a local restaurant this weekend with up to 20 family and friends Mr Portman said: “We are really looking forward to seeing them all.”