It was love at first sight the night I met Eric on this stage

THE Empire Theatre crowd was in raptures as the tall, bespectacled man and his sidekick with the short, fat hairy legs teased them with their quirky, slapstick style comedy routine.

BRING ME SUNSHINE: Joan watched Eric and Ernie from the wings of what is now the Festival Theatre. Picture: JAYNE WRIGHT

But while the fresh-faced double act known as Morecambe and Wise wound up their act and headed for the wings, it wasn't the crowd that held his eye, but instead the dazzling smile of a beautiful dancer.

And comedy legend Eric Morecambe pledged there and then to make the stunning young woman his bride.

Within a year he'd married Joan Bartlett and they remained devoted husband and wife until his untimely death in 1984.

Yet while both harboured fond memories of how love blossomed in Edinburgh, they were destined never to return here as a couple.

Now, 60 years later, widow Joan has made a poignant return to what is now the Festival Theatre, to the very spot in the wings where she first set eyes on her future husband.

And, by a curious quirk of fate, her return to where romance first blossomed with Eric has come about thanks to their son Gary finding love with an Edinburgh girl.

Joan, now 84, told how she wanted to make the journey after watching the recent Victoria Wood drama Eric & Ernie and realising it wrongly depicted their first fateful meeting as being at a Glasgow theatre.

"It also showed them 'dying' on stage that night, which they definitely didn't, the Edinburgh audience loved them," she added.

The couple's meeting was by sheer chance, she said. "I was a dancer and model but I was out of work and a bit down at the time. A dancer in the variety show that Eric and Ernie were in took ill, and so I was asked to come up from London to stand in. If she hadn't taken ill, we'd never have met."

The duo were performing in the show but, while they'd go on to become one of the most successful British comedy acts? yet, they were playing second bill to another act that night.

"They were still very successful," added Joan. "And I was quite interested to see them work. So I stood in the wings watching, draped in my blue-black dress."

She made an instant impression because the pair approached her as they left the stage. "They asked if I liked the act. I said it was very good but they really must polish their shoes and they pretended to be quite insulted."

Joan added: "Edinburgh and in particular the theatre always had a special significance for us. He used to talk about how he proposed to me in Edinburgh and that he'd told everyone 'This is the girl I'm going to marry'."Now the romantic connection has passed to the next generation, for Gary, 55, the couple's son, is now settled down with Edinburgh-born partner Margo Hutchison.

Margo, 50, and Gary live in Bath, but return to Edinburgh regularly to visit Margo's father Bill, 85, at his home in Ravelston.

Gary said: "It's lovely to bring mum back here to where she first met dad. It's brought many memories back."