ONE young lady knew she was taking a gamble when she decided to pop the question to her husband on February 29.

But nearly 50 years on, the couple are still going strong thanks to the leap year tradition.

Yiannoulla Goodwin used her woman's prerogative to propose to fellow student Paul on February 29, 1960 after she rejected her parents' plans for an arranged marriage to another man.

Mrs Goodwin, 64 - or 16 in leap years - said: "I knew women could propose on February 29 so I did it half-seriously.

"But Paul was the only boy I felt comfortable with and now we are even closer together."

When Mrs Goodwin, now of St Stephens Walk, South Ashford, was 15, her Cypriot parents had tried to set up her with a marriage to a 25-year-old man on the island.

She said: "They sent him my picture and apparently he fell in love with me from that. He sent me his and he just looked too old for me. Besides, I didn't know him so I said 'no'."

Meanwhile, Mrs Goodwin was building up a friendship with Paul while they were students at Canterbury College of Art.

She said: "We would spend lunchtimes together and I always felt safe with him. When I proposed to him on my 16th birthday I never thought he would say yes.

"As we prepared to get married I found a big mistake on my birth certificate. It said I was male so I had to get that changed!

"The day I was born in Cyprus so many friends and relatives came over and someone in their excitement ran to the church to announce the birth but mistakenly said I was a boy."

The couple married in October 1961, and went on to have five children.

The couple's first child, Sophia Wren, was born in August 1962 but tragically died of leukaemia three days before her 33rd birthday in 1995.

The other grown-up children are Paula, John-Daniel, Peter-James and Mark, who is 43 this year and has Downs Syndrome.

The couple have seven grandchildren.

Mrs Goodwin said: "We have gone through some hard times but we are still together after all this time."