WARTIME sweethearts who met at a town hall dance have celebrated 60 years of marriage.

Peter and Vi Ballatt, both 80, who have five children, seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, met when they were 18, at Middlesbrough Town Hall. They were married two years later at St Barnabas Church, Middlesbrough.

Mr Ballatt said: "We have had a very happy marriage. We have had the usual illnesses but we are still together and I think we are a good team. We have got a lovely family and I feel very lucky."

Mr Ballatt, originally from Grangetown, started his working life as a butcher boy. He moved to the steelworks, working at Beam Mill at Lackenby and Dorman Long, which later became British Steel, on the Cleveland site, and retired in the early Eighties.

During the Second World War, Mr Ballatt served in the Army with the Cameronians, a Scottish regiment, and was wounded at Anzio, in Italy.

Mrs Ballatt trained as a seamstress at Prices Clothing Factory, North Ormesby. During the war, she worked at the Aycliffe munitions factory and went on to train as a fitter.

Later she worked at St Mary's Restaurant, Middlesbrough, at a toy factory and made diving suits at a factory in Dormanstown, where the couple live.