One of Britain's oldest brides, 94, marries again - in the same village church where she was first married 70 years ago
When Bess Atkins tracked down the chap she'd met on the bus and asked him out, she was afraid he'd think her a bit forward.
But when a girl has reached her 90s, she doesn't like to mess about.
Luckily, her bravery paid off - and she has become one half of Britain's oldest newlywed couple.
With a combined age of 180, she and Winston Barraclough, 86, comfortably beat the previous record of 177.
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The happy couple: Winston Barraclough married Bess, who is Britain's oldest bride
They exchanged vows at the same church in which the new Mrs Barraclough first married almost 70 years ago, ten days before the outbreak of the Second World War.
The couple met in 2005 when Winston, a widower, was working as a bus driver for the local hospital.
He picked her up from her home and instantly "took a shine" to the former civil servant, who had been a widow for 40 years.
But it was only later, when she went searching for him, that romance blossomed. "When he dropped me off on that first meeting.
"I didn't even know his name but I tracked him down to a shop in centre I knew he visited," Mrs Barraclough, 94, said yesterday.
"I was a bit nervous when I rang him to ask him around for a coffee - I thought he might think I was a fast woman.
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Times past: Bess (left) at St Nicholas Church, Hornsea, East Yorks. She married her first husband Charles at the same church in 1939 and is pictured walking into church with her brother, and Winston Barraclough (right) then aged 22
"But we had a great chemistry and I thought why not?"
They became close and from that point on Mr Barraclough visited her almost every day. Finally, on New Year's Day, he popped the question.
"Winston said he had something serious to say," she said.
"I thought it was some medical problem and feared the worst.
"It was then that he said: "Will you be my wife please? I would love to marry you".
"I was totally shocked but I said: "Yes, that would be lovely"."
They married on April 5 at St Nicholas Church in Hornsea, East Yorkshire, in front of 40 friends and relatives.
The Rev. Phillip Lamb, who married them, said: "Love has no boundaries. It's never too late for anyone and Winston and Bess are living proof of that."
