70 years of marriage started with a dance

FRANK and DOROTHY SMITH

ROYTON couple Frank and Dorothy Smith will celebrate 70 years of wedded bliss tomorrow, sparked by a romantic dance at the Savoy.

The Oldham dance hall was a hotspot for courting couples when the pair met more than seven decades ago.

And it was a foxtrot which brought the pair together, resulting in them celebrating their platinum wedding anniversary.

Mr and Mrs Smith lived in Chadderton all their lives until they moved to Millwood Court, Royton, four years ago.

Mrs Smith (92) recalled: “We have always been close since meeting, and he said to me one day ‘how about getting married,’ and I said ‘yes.”

Mr Smith (94), added: “I used to go to school with Dorothy’s brother, Harold, and sometimes I went round to their house for jam butties, when I was about 12, but I never saw her.”

The pair are one of Oldham’s longest-married couples, and one of their biggest hobbies was sequence dancing.

Mr Smith said: “We have never ever gone out without each other and we have always been happy.

“We still go out everyday, together of course. We live in a nice area and we don’t sit around. We have been all over the world on holidays since we retired, but we can’t go now because we can’t get insurance.”

As children, Mrs Smith lived in Busk Road and her husband-to-be lived in Lime Street.

They married at All Saints Church, Oldham, three years after they began courting, and set up home in Bamford Street.

They moved to Park Avenue, a few years later, where they lived until four years ago.

Mrs Smith worked in cotton mills around Oldham during her working life, finally retiring from Werneth Mill, where she was a winder.

Her husband worked at J Chadwick bleachers and dyers in Hunt Lane, Chadderton, before he joined the Royal Artillery during the Second World War.

He said: “We used to go to hotspots to protect buildings and aerodromes, both in Britain and overseas in the Middle East and Ceylon.”

After the war, he worked as glass department manager at William Bradbury’s in George Street, Oldham, which provided glass to the building trade.

The couple have two children, Eileen Cooper, who lives in Florida and Frank Smith, who lives in Australia. They also have three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Mrs Cooper made the journey from America to be with her parents on their special day.