Waltzing To Happiness
A shared love of dancing has ensured that Gladys and Ron Tearne have waltzed together through 72 happy years of marriage
It’s Valentine’s Day this week and what could be more appropriate than celebrating the wonder ful 72-year love story between Ron and Gladys Tearne? Ron clearly remembers the day in 1944 when he stepped into a Coventry pub with his friend while on leave during the Second World War.
“I had joined the RAF the previous year and I was home on leave waiting for my next assignment,” explains Ron, now 94. “My friend and I went down to the pub and we saw this gang of girls in the middle of the room, having a drink. He told me they were workers from the hospital up the road and I said to him, ‘Look at that blonde over there! I’m going to ask her out.’
“She was blonde, blue-eyed, you couldn’t have wished for anyone better. So I plucked up the courage to ask her if she would go out – and she said yes!”
Gladys, now 93, and Ron were married in November 1944, just six weeks after meeting, but the newly-weds were separated for six months from the day after their wedding when Ron had to return to camp in Wales.
The air gunner was then sent out to the Azores and the couple had to rely on keeping in touch via letters before Ron returned home, an experience he describes as “glorious.”
The couple went on to have one daughter and two sons. Then, as their family grew up in the 1960s they developed an interest that was to bind them even more closely together.
“I started dancing back in 1967 because Gladys wanted to do it,” says Ron. “I hadn’t done any dancing before but I really took to it, I liked it and we’ve been going to our classes twice weekly, more or less ever since!
“We were ballroom sequence dancing with other couples, on some occasions with as many as 30 or 40 other couples. There is a specific step pattern to do for every dance and you keep repeating that pattern all the way around the room. There was a good social life attached to the dancing, too. We used to travel with everyone up and down the country to dance at different places.
“We always love watching Strictly Come Dancing these days, although of course the dancers are all much younger than us and the routines on the show are far too advanced for us. We do what we always have done – waltzes, foxtrots, tangos, rumbas – at our own speed!”
The couple celebrated their platinum anniversary with a special dance to Vera Lynn’s Anniversary Waltz, after which they were surprised by a champagne reception organised by their dance teachers Stan and Yvonne.
Ron recalls, “The local press came along and one thing led to another and we eventually ended up being filmed for a Remembrance
We celebrated our platinum anniversary with a special dance
Day-themed episode of the Strictly spin-off programme It Takes Two. We met the Strictly professional dancer Natalie Lowe for that and she was a lovely girl.
“Our dancing has had a lot to do with our happiness. We have just celebrated our 72nd anniversary. That’s quite a bit, isn’t it? I know I’m married now!
“Having a shared interest and something you can do together is what it is all about, really. We’ve had a couple of words with each other now and again over the years but we always make it up quite easily.
“I make a point of not carrying any argument overnight. That’s the only thing I can advise anybody. Make your mind up about that and you’ll get on better, I’m sure. Never carry it over.
“Gladys and I do very little on our own these days because she now needs support when we go out, but yes, we have lived very happily together all this time. I love her very much.”
Our shared love of dancing definitely has a lot to do with our happiness