Couple in step for 60 years

Aug 25 2005 By Poppy Brady, Evening Mail

A COUPLE who ran a dancing club together for more than 30 years are still very much in step, celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary today.

Eric and Margaret Wildman, of Harborne, kept everyone on their toes back in 1961 at the Over 21 Sequence Dancing Club, at Warley Woods Methodist Church.

And when they weren't dancing Margaret, now 81, ran a luncheon club and 83-year-old Eric was choirmaster for more than 20 years.

Eric is still in strong voice as a bass singer and deputy conductor with Warley Male Voice Choir.

The couple, who have a son and a daughter, seven grandchildren and five great grandchildren, believe that keeping busy is the secret to staying young.

Harborne-born Margaret, whose maiden name was Briggs, and Eric, from Bearwood, married at Bearwood Baptist Church after first meeting as teenagers out riding their bikes. They did most of their courting on a tandem.

"Margaret was not very good on a bike, so we decided to get a tandem and she let me do all the hard work," said Eric, who worked as a lens maker.