A RETIRED Ledbury couple are proving that it is never too late to get into step and achieve excellence in dance.

All it needs, if you follow Michael and Joan Walker's example, is a little natural talent and true dedication.

The pensioners from Knapp Close have swirled out at national level in top-flight competitions, and have a cabinet full of trophies to show for their three decades of "tripping the light fantastic".

They decided to speak of their bid for excellence and extol the virtues of dance after hearing how so few men, and so many women, are responding to the regular Salsa sessions at Ledbury's Royal Hall.

On any Wednesday night, there can be as many was 40 ladies, and as few as eight gentlemen, which means that ladies have to wait their turn for their moment on the dance floor.

For Mr Walker, aged 67, it is a familiar tale. He said: "We had two children, and I worked in a foundry, and I went to the pub. I couldn't dance a step!"

Mrs Walker, now 64, loved dancing, but she was always waiting for the right partner.

Her husband said: "Joan used to go round the old village halls to attend dances. She was thrilled when I started to dance with her."

When the children became teenagers, Mr and Mrs Walker went to beginners' classes at the Foley Arms in Malvern, and the tutors soon hailed Mr Walker as a "natural".

Surprisingly, for a couple destined for high achievement, the lessons have never stopped to this day, and the Walkers still go to classes at the All Seasons Dance School in Hereford to "keep on top of it".

Mr Walker said: "You've got to take it very seriously."

The couple have indeed taken their hobby very seriously indeed.

In 30 years, husband and wife have taken part in perhaps more than 100 competitions around the country, and on many occasions they have come home with trophies.

Dancing in the social class, which calls for men to dress in tuxedos, they came through to win at "the lovely Winter Gardens" at Weston-Super-Mare, under the expert gaze of the famous adjudicator, Ted Burroughs.

But perhaps their most impressive placement was to get to the quarter finals at Blackpool, in the British Social Dance Competitions.

Mr Walker said: "It's a buzz. It gets to you, and I never thought it would.

"Dancing does keep you fit. A rugby player told me it uses up as much energy as a game of rugby. It's the nerves as well. But it's a thrill to win."

The Walkers have now retired from serious competition, but have certainly not given up dancing for pleasure.

They still dance up to six times a week "all round the three counties" including at Ross, Leominster, Malvern, Gloucester and Cheltenham.

Their favourite disciplines are old time and modern sequence.

Mr Walker said: "At Ledbury Community Centre on Monday nights, you can see twenty to thirty men dancing their night away with their beautiful lady partners.

"We have made loads and loads of friends."