FIFTY years of happy marriage are being celebrated by a Heworth couple today.

Margaret and Alan Miles married at St Hilda’s Church, in Tang Hall, on March 21, 1959, after he proposed from his hospital bed while recovering from a broken leg.

The couple met at the De Grey Rooms in York after Mr Miles had left the Army. Mrs Miles said: “He asked me to dance.

“He wasn’t a very good dancer but he managed.”

She said her husband used to play football for York City Reserves and for York District but a broken leg put paid to that.

However it did not stop him going to the pub, it just meant that his wife-to-be had to push him there in his wheelchair. After marrying, the couple lived in Wigginton Road with Mr Miles’ sister before moving to Leeman Road. They stayed there until their two children reached secondary school, at which point the family moved to Sixth Avenue in Heworth.

Mrs Miles used to work at Rowntree in the packing room, while Mr Miles was at the carriage works although both have since retired, celebrating the fact with a Caribbean cruise.

Asked the secret of a long successful marriage, Mrs Miles said: “It’s give and take. We used to have an argument, but we would laugh it off later.”

To celebrate their golden wedding, the couple are being taken off on a Spanish holiday by their children, Debra and Paul.