A CLACTON couple, who met through their love of showbusiness, are in the spotlight now for their golden wedding anniversary.

Bob and Rita Young, of Coolyne Way, Great Clacton, have enjoyed a lifetime of entertainment together staging charity shows and helping local groups with acts and choreography.

Rita was bombed out of Wood Green with her family in the Forties and came to live in Harrow Road. She had trained as a dancer and spent two years working in pantomime and on the Empire Circuit, and then in Ipswich.

Bob, who lived in Oxford Road, Clacton, with his family spotted “this delicious blonde” and spent some weeks trying to get to know her.

By the time they got chatting, Rita had given up professional dancing and Bob was just getting more involved in local shows as a comedy act and compere with his brother Reg.

When the Young Brothers won the £200 first prize in Pick of the County talent contest, Bob bought an engagement ring and proposed to Rita on the top of a London bus.

They couple married on October 10, 1959, at Our Lady of Light RC Church in Clacton.

They lived in North Road, then went with the War Office to Nairobi, returning to live Windermere Road, Holland-on-Sea, then St Osyth and then Carlton Road.