WARTIME sweethearts who met at a town hall dance are celebrating 60 years of marriage today.

Peter and Vi Ballatt, both 80, will receive a celebration card from Her Majesty the Queen to congratulate them on their diamond wedding and will celebrate at a family party.

The couple, from Redcar, who have five children, seven grandchildren and two great- grandchildren, first 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 then moved to the steelworks, working at Beam Mill at Lackenby and Dorman Long, which later became British Steel, on the Cleveland site.

He retired in the early 1980s.

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.

Their son-in-law, David Adamson, said: "Family and friends still avail themselves of Vi's expertise as a seamstress and they have their wedding dresses and clothes made on a regular basis."