A POPULAR Ardrossan couple are celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary today (Thursday).

Jim and Marilyn Norwood (nee Laidlaw) have spent 60 years happily married since first meeting at the old Castle Craig's Dance Hall in Ardrossan.

They had three children together - David, Morag and Valerie - and now have a further five grandchildren and one great grandchild.

“We’ve raised a nice family," the pair told the Herald when we visited them at their home on Stanley Road earlier this week.

“It’s as if it was only yesterday. You wonder where the years have gone," Jim added, as the couple listened to their old wedding cassette tape and reminisced about the past 60 years.

They also proudly displayed their telegram from King Charles III congratulating them on reaching the milestone.

The pair were married in Friars Green Methodist Church in Warrington back in 1963 - the place where Marilyn's mother met her father when he was stationed there during the war.

But it was in Ardrossan that they met as Jim, an apprentice joiner from Saltcoats, and Marilyn, who worked in the chemist's in Glasgow Street, from Ardrossan, went for a night at the dancing.

Marilyn explained: “My friend and I tried to save up enough money, but they had put the price up by thruppence, so we couldn’t get in and we waited outside.

“Then two fellows came along, one gave my friend a thruppence, and the other – who turned out to be Jim - gave me one.

“He always says he won me for a thruppence!”

So what exactly has their secret been for such a long happy marriage?

Marilyn commented: “We are quite social. We go out and we are very involved at Park Church and in all the clubs."

The couple are certainly a familiar face locally, and have also been very involved with Act One - the Ardrossan Community theatre group.

While they are also just as into their dancing now as they were when they met.

Marilyn contuned: “We’re regulars in the Stevenston Masonic. I can’t dance much now but we enjoy the music and the company.”

Congratulations on 60 wonderful years married Marilyn and Jim, from all at the Herald, and here's to many more!