Now, some 53 years after that night, Gordon and Janet Spencer are today celebrating their golden wedding anniversary.

The couple, of Station Road, Drayton, Portsmouth, will be joined by 100 friends and family for a celebration.

Janet, 68, said: 'We met up the day after the dance and went to the Odeon in North End to see Rock Around The Clock. Three years later we we married.

'I was only 18 when we got married and some said it would never last, but it did!'

Gordon, 72, was in the merchant navy when he met Janet, but he gave it up because he didn't want to be away from her.

He became a milkman, a job he remained in for 35 years, while Janet gave birth to their three children.

He said: 'We never had to leave the children, although we both worked.

'I finished early and we always worked together, for all our lives. That is how we worked it.'

Janet, nee Jackson, worked as a seamstress at Twilfits Corset Factory before becoming a nurse at St Mary's Hospital, Portsmouth.

Paying tribute to her husband, she said: 'We haven't had an easy life. It's been hard, but Gordon has always looked after us all and we have never wanted for anything.

'He has been a marvellous father and we have always worked together.

'Anything we have ever had has always been ours, not yours or mine.'

After 40 years of marriage the couple, who have six grandchildren, renewed their wedding vows at St Philip's Church, Cosham, where they were married.

Last October they enjoyed a cruise together around the Caribbean on the Liberty of the Seas.

Gordon, who plays bowls about five times a week at Gas Social Bowls Club in Alexandra Park, North End, said: 'Janet is the backbone of the family and has always looked after us and this is what it is all about.

'I wouldn't have changed any of it for the world.'

david.hurley@thenews.co.uk