Not many people would think of signing up with a model agency at the age of 62. But Daphne Couplan did, and the attractive grandmother has since graced the pages of a variety of magazines and newspapers. Recently she turned model patient to extend her Third Age career with a triple heart by-pass. Helen Mead tells her story

A CLUTCH OF glossy magazines grace the coffee table in Daphne Couplan's flat.

Glance at them and the face smiling up from the colourful pages is instantly recognisable.

It's a model - but it's not Jerry Hall or Naomi Campbell. Smartly dressed, with silver hair neatly coiffeured and face perfectly made up, it's 72-year-old Daphne, looking relaxed as she reclines in an armchair or sits on a park bench.

The pensioner, who has three grown-up children, is a mature model who has spent the past ten years lending her petite frame to adverts for, among other things, reclining chairs, retirement homes and thermal underwear.

She has become something of a celebrity in Shipley, where she lives with husband Gordon, and is known locally as the "Bex Bissell gal" since she started appearing in the Magic Broom adverts for the carpet cleaner a year ago.

On the books of the Leeds-based model agency Catwalk, Daphne got into modelling after spotting an advert in the Telegraph & Argus ten years ago.

She recalls: "It asked for volunteers for a film for Leeds Film Festival. I went along to take part and while there someone suggested I did some modelling. And that was it."

The business is not lucrative, says Daphne, who at one time ran a vegetarian restaurant in Saltaire. "There is no financial gain - I do it because I enjoy chatting to everyone and meeting the photographers, and it's certainly not mind-bending!"

On some assignments, Gordon, 62, has teamed up with his wife to portray the perfect Third Age couple. A retired company director, he was happy to help out, but is equally content to take a back seat. On the books of the Leeds-based agency Catwalk, Daphne enjoys her "hobby" enormously. "It keeps me from running to seed, and gives me an incentive to watch my figure," she says.

Dressed in a beige two-piece suit with matching shoes, and with minimal make-up, she is unmistakably the model in the glossy brochures.

Yet her good looks belie the fact that only 12 weeks ago she was on an operating table having a triple heart bypass.

Twenty years ago she survived breast cancer after having a mastectomy and eight months of chemotherapy. She was fine until six years ago when she began to get breathless. Last year the condition worsened.

Daphne was referred to the Yorkshire Clinic, Bingley. An angiogram revealed damage to three arteries and, six weeks later, Daphne underwent a triple by-pass at the Yorkshire Clinic. She recalls: "Two days before I was booked in they rang me for modelling and I said I was having a triple heart by-pass. They were a bit surprised! Needless to say I had to turn them down."

Doctors now say the future looks good for Daphne who, although she faces a long convalescence, is determined to resume her modelling career.

"I'm just beginning to feel like I've turned the corner, and I hope I can eventually get back to work again."

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