The sound of a fire alarm is leading to the sound of wedding bells for a couple.

Frank Thompson and Pamela Dunn fell in love after they met during the drama of a supermarket store evacuation in Dover.

Now the elderly couple have named the day for their wedding.

Mr Thompson said: “We first made eye contact in the store. Something just clicked.”

Last Wednesday, they were given a celebratory lunch at the store where they first met, Morrisons.

The couple, whose wedding is on July 31, met there on Wednesday May 4, 2016.

Mr Thompson, 73, of Parfitt Way, Dover, explained: “We were coming towards each other in the opposite direction and I noticed she had a trolley of pot plants. I asked where exactly she got those.

“Then the fire alarm went off and everyone had to leave. We were allowed back in but less than a minute later it went off again.

“I looked at her and something clicked. I can’t explain it.”

Ms Dunn, 72, of Vale View Road, said: “It happened only because we were talking together and we just got on well.”

The couple understand that the there had been a false alarm at the store as customers were soon allowed back inside.

Mr Thompson said: “There was confusion among customers and Pam said: ‘What do we do now.’

“I said we should go and get a coffee. We did and we found out we were getting on so well. We were together for half an hour.”

Ms Dunn eats at the store every Wednesday after her Weight Watchers meeting in the town.

So the couple agreed to have coffee at the store the following Wednesday.

Telephone numbers were exchanged and full romance blossomed from there.

They got engaged 18 months ago and will marry at Canterbury Register Office. A couple of weeks ago Ms Dunn casually mentioned to staff she and her partner had met there.

“I hope what has happened with us has encouraged older people not to give up.” Mr Thompson

So delighted workers laid on the surprise free lunch for them with a congratulatory balloon, cake and flowers.

Mr Thompson said: “We found we had a lot in common, the same sense of humour, the same taste in music. We were even both motorcycle riders when we were young.”

But by uncanny coincidence the couple had unwittingly been neighbours in Walmer Castle Road for 18 months from 1967 to 1968 when they were in their 20s.

Ms Dunn said: “When we met properly we got talking about that time and found we had only lived about three or four doors apart.”

Mr Thompson said; “We didn’t remember each other from then. I think fate brought us together now.”

Ms Dunn was single in the late Sixties but Mr Thompson was already married by then.

By 2016 she had long been divorced and Mr Thompson was separated with his divorce about to be finalised.

Ms Dunn said: “I didn’t think I would meet anyone again.”

Mr Thompson said: “I thought that at my age, who is going to be interested in an old man? After I broke up with my second wife I got lonely but was able to pull myself together.

“I hope what has happened with us has encouraged older people not to give up.”

Mr Thompson has four children, four granchildren and two great-grandchildren.

He is originally from Stoke-on-Trent and an ex-soldier with the Staffordshire Regiment.

He served in Northern Ireland on tours of duty from January 1972 to February 1973, starting in Armagh.

In his later working life he was a vehicle recovery driver. Ms Dunn is a mother-of-five who divorced in the 1980s.

She has nine grandchildren, five great-grandchildren with a sixth on the way. She was a security officer at the Channel Tunnel.