A HUSBAND and wife bricklaying team is causing a stir among the otherwise all-male construction team at Bowey Homes.

Ian Stiles, 34, and his wife, Amanda, 31, from Shiney Row, Sunderland, are used to hearing wise cracks about their unusual partnership when they are on site at Bowey Homes' housing development, at Hamsterley.

Amanda, who is also a dinner lady at Biddick Primary School, Washington, originally joined her husband on the building site at weekends to keep him company.

But she got the taste for the manual life and has been carrying his bricks and cement for almost 15 years.

Ian and Amanda are working on 51 properties, ranging from three-bedroom semi-detached and three and four-bedroom detached properties at the Hamsterley Vale development.