A 50-year love affair is still going strong for golden wedding couple Alan and Shirley Nevison - even though there is one passion they have never been able to share.

Retired mechanic Mr Nevison, 70, spends most of his time restoring rare and classic cars in the garage behind the couple's home in Toronto, near Bishop Auckland, even though his wife doesn't share his passion and cannot even drive.

He restored the family car, a 1946 Hillman Minx, and is now working on a battery-driven 1934 Vauxhall.

The couple met at The Hippodrome cinema, in Bishop Auckland, when they sat together by chance because there were not enough seats for the groups of friends whom they arrived with.

Eighteen months, later they married at Toronto church.

For Mr Nevison, the first meeting was love at first sight. He said: "I proposed on a bus and she wasn't sure, but I told her I had enough love for both of us.

"I still feel the same way about her now as when we were first courting."

Mr Nevison worked at garages in south Durham until he retired at the age of 59. His wife worked in factories at St Helen Auckland and Newton Aycliffe. They have a son, Alan, daughter-in-law, Janice, and granddaughter, Kate, aged ten, who were among 60 guests at a party last night in the Toronto Lodge.