Henry and Miriam Lowndes first met at Worksop’s Savoy Cinema, when a rowdy Henry, 19, made a nuisance of himself by playing with 25-year-old Miriam’s hair.

Miriam, 77, said that it was actually Henry’s causing trouble that first got her attention.

“He was a pest!” she said. “He kept pulling my hair, that’s what did it.”

“I was watching a film with a friend, and he was with three of his.”

After meeting at the cinema in November 1957, the couple married less than two years later in June 1959, at Worksop’s St John’s Church.

The bride and groom lived with Henry’s parents for seven years before moving into their first house in Model Village, Creswell, where they stayed for 13 years.

While Miriam worked in a launderette on Kilton Road, Henry tackled a variety of jobs throughout the course of their marriage, including work in both a blacksmith’s and as a surface worker at Creswell pit.

For the last 30 years, the couple have lived together in a bungalow in Langwith, and enjoy a more sedate life, as Miriam works on her tapestry, and Henry tends to his car.

The pair say most of their time is spent caring for each other through their various ailments, and Henry, 71, says he just enjoys looking after Miriam, who suffers from osteoperosis and arthritis, while she keeps an eye on his asthma.

“We’ve had our up and downs, we all do, but I’m just caring for her,” he said.

Henry and Miriam, who have no children of their own, celebrated their anniversary by visiting their nephew for a family get-together in Laughterton, near Lincoln.