Couple who danced off with each other's hearts

A couple who met at dance classes and have shared their love of tango and ballroom ever since are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary.

Pearl and Stewart Scott first met at the Windmill dance hall in Canonmills not long after VE day.

The pair, then both 18, were each taken along to dance lessons by friends and met for the first time, but would have just three months together before Stewart had to leave to serve in the RAF.

Pearl also said that there was some hesitation before the couple fell for each other.

"I didn't actually like him at first," said Pearl, "he was too quiet and he wasn't keen on dancing initially.

"He was always shy, but he was very gentlemanly and always used to ask to walk me home. At the time he lived in Leith and I in Balgreen.

"I used to say, 'I live too far away for you to walk me home', but he always did. I later found out that he thought I had said the 'bowling green' in Leith, not 'Balgreen' near Corstorphine, and thought it was right near him. But he never mentioned it.

"Then my sister and mother met him one day when he came to the house in his uniform and they loved him."

Pearl continued to meet up with Stewart when he was on leave. A few years after his national service was complete, the happy couple married at Buccleuch Church in Newington in March 1951.

Pearl became a typist and Stewart trained as a cabinet maker and joiner, going on to work at a joinery firm in Morningside. The couple moved to a house on Drum Brae Crescent in Clermiston and have stayed ever since.

The Scotts also enjoyed holidays in Italy and Malta, among others, and had two children, Norman, who is now married with a daughter, and Philip, who sadly passed away recently.

Stewart went on to become a lecturer at Stevenson College in 1975, teaching woodwork to young people with learning difficulties, until he retired in 1993.

Now both 82, Pearl and Stewart spend their time enjoying their retirement, and still enjoy the occasional dance together.

The were due to spend yesterday at the Loch Fyne restaurant in Newhaven with Norman and daughter-in-law Penny, and family.

Pearl said: "I'm not sure what the key to being happy is, but we've always found it. We've never really argued and we've always enjoyed the same things. Especially a good dance."