Just Married..........................at 97 and 87 !

When Henry Kerr met an attractive younger woman, he feared she wouldn't give an older man a second glance. So he embarked on a four-year campaign to win over the object of his affections, writing her love poetry and spending hours exchanging life stories. And yesterday, 97-year- old Mr Kerr proved you can't hurry love, when he finally wed his younger companion - Valerie Berkowitz, 87. He said: 'I would have asked her much earlier, if I had thought such an attractive, witty young lady of 87 would have anything to do with an old codger like me.'

Mr Kerr believed his love life was over following his wife Gladys's death in 2004, but said he was 'struck like a thunderbolt' when he met Mrs Berkowitz at the North London care home they share. He said: 'I thought she found me pushy and conceited - until she acquired an analytical interest in the poems I read at the poetry circle I founded when I moved in here. Then we found our affinities.' When they started talking, the pair discovered they had both lived in South Africa, and both had families scattered across the world. He wrote several love poems in an attempt to win her affections.

Mr Kerr, who moved to the care home in 2006 when he was 94, said: 'When I did ask her to marry me a few months ago she went hysterical - she put her head down on the table and couldn't stop laughing.' Even once Mrs Berkowitz had accepted the proposal, the couple expected to stay permanently engaged to avoid the ' complication' of marriage. But Mr Kerr, who ran an investment company before retirement, said: 'I felt people were whispering behind their hands and gossiping about us moving in together, and that it was important for us to be Mr and Mrs.' The couple finally married in a traditional Jewish ceremony yesterday at their care home in Golders Green, followed by a high tea for 90 guests.

The newlyweds, who have six children, 19 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren between them, will embark on a one-day honeymoon today but plan to keep its location a secret. The new Mrs Kerr, a former biochemist and counsellor whose first husband Abraham died in 2005 at the age of 82, said: 'Almost immediately after Henry arrived at the home, we started gravitating towards each other, from breakfast on. He is so totally talented and full of fun, yet also very serious. He's different from my late husband in every way, except that they both had enormous brain power. It's absolutely incredible that we found each other so late in life and that we are so loving - and lovely - together. We go to museums and galleries and theatres in groups - but we are off for a day trip honeymoon all by ourselves, and are thinking about a cruise.'

Mr and Mrs Kerr will keep their two rooms at the home, although they will use one as a bedroom and another as a study.

The couple have also walked away with the title of Britain's oldest newlyweds - previously held by Les Atwell, 94, and Sheila Walsh, 87.