Losing a loved one is one of the worst things in the world. And Peter Horne thought his world had ended when his wife Janey lost her fight against cancer. But then he was persuaded to go dancing and his life changed. Now he has a spring in his step - literally. Helen Mead reports.

PETER HORNE has just got married. And he's so happy he has to pinch himself.

As he hugs wife Ruth, it is hard to believe that, less than two years ago, he was a broken man on the verge of giving up. "I felt I had nothing to live for and could have quite easily given in. This has rescued me," he says, his joy plain to see.

Peter's beloved wife Janey died in November 1998. She had battled with cancer since discovering a lump in her breast two-and-a-half years earlier. She underwent a mastectomy and the disease was thought to have cleared, but it recurred in summer 1998, spreading to her liver. Her death came two months after the couple's 30th wedding anniversary, leaving Peter bereft.

"I could not prepare myself for it. It was terrible watching her gradually going downhill in her final months, it tore me apart and it was a big shock when she died - everything came to an abrupt halt. Life became meaningless," says the civil engineer.

The couple's son, Richard, had his graduation ceremony four days after his mother's death. "She tried to hang on," says Peter. "I went along - it's what she would have wanted."

The next few weeks were hard, and Christmas was a particularly difficult time. Peter was in no mood for merry-making, but on New Year's Eve, Richard managed to coax him into going to the Bingley dance studio where he and Janey had danced together for seven years.

Recalls Peter: "I tried to duck out but he persuaded me to go along. I have friends there, so I knew I'd have people to talk to."

Peter and Janey used to sit in a group of ten. Says Peter: "Of course now there was only nine, which was upsetting, and eight got up to dance so I was on my own and thought, 'Well, I can't sit here like a plum all night.'

He adds: "I think my friends went on to the floor to get me to do something. I knew I could either sit there, go home or dance."

Peter, 56, had seen Ruth sitting at another table. "I'd seen her there before but didn't know her," he says. He found the courage to ask her to dance and, as the night went on, he felt confident enough to invite six other women on to the dance floor.

To his surprise, Peter found he was enjoying himself. "I'm glad I went," he says. "That night seemed to open a door for me."

Peter began to go back to RM's Dance Studio. He started with line-dancing classes, because he didn't need a partner. He met Ruth again and they danced together, but he did not have any romantic inclinations towards her. "I didn't know anything about her," he says, "I assumed she was happily married."

They often teamed up at the classes, and Peter learned that Ruth - a nurse at Airedale Hospital - had recently split with her husband. They became friends, and in April last year, four months after that first dance, Peter overcame his nerves and rang Ruth to ask her out for a drink.

He recalls: "I was surprised when she agreed. Then I put the phone down and thought 'What have I done? I felt like a teenager."

They went for a meal at Steeton Hall near Keighley and got on really well. After that the pair started to spend more time together, enjoying walks in the Yorkshire Dales.

Says Peter: "It was wonderful - from feeling as if I had no future, I went to feeling as if I had been reborn."

Ruth, 37, who has a 12-year-old son, Robert, was equally smitten. "We got on so well that after we'd been out a few times I said to Peter, 'I think we've got something really special here.'

She adds: "We danced really well together and initially I thought that was it - but looking back I realise that it was more than that."

On their first date Ruth too felt like a teenager. "It was like being 16 again."

The couple feel comfortable with one another. "That's one of the main attractions," says Ruth, who believed that she would remain single after the breakdown of her 14-year marriage.

"Peter talks about Janey and I feel it is important that he does. We feel really at ease with one another and have a lot in common."

As their love grew, they went on holiday, first on a cruise to Norway, then on a sunshine break to the Canary Islands. And last month, they returned to the scene of their first date, Steeton Hall, to get married before settling down at their Gilstead home.

Both Richard and Robert are pleased for them. Says Peter: "I think it was a relief to Richard that I was seeing someone - he wants me to be happy again. And Robert is a grand lad - we all get on very well."

Peter still can't quite believe it: "It's like being given a second chance - from feeling the worst I've ever felt in my life, I feel completely revitalised."

Adds Ruth: "It's as if it was meant to be."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.