A HAPPY couple who met on a Lake District teamwork course more than four decades ago are appealing for help to track down their former course mates.

Robert Hicks, known as Rob, and Robina Hicks, known as Bina, met on a four-week residential course at Brathay Hall on Ambleside in 1971.

“Bina and I had the beginning of a relationship during our stay at Brathay, so much so we met up on an increasingly regular basis even though living 100 miles apart”, Rob said. “We were married five years later, and recently celebrated our 40 years anniversary, all because of Brathay.”

Bina Harvey lived in Banbury, Oxfordshire, and Robert Hicks lived in Newmarket, Suffolk.

After little contact at the start of the course, the future couple were stood next to each other only because they were assembled in alphabetical order.

Rob said: “We sometimes wonder what would have happened if one name had begun with a different letter, it may well have changed the course of history.”

The happy couple have two children; Alice, 35, and Ben, 32, and Bina and Rob have made sure to pass the things they learnt on the Brathay course to them.

“To this day we often wonder what has happened to others on the course”, Rob said. “Maybe publishing our story will get us back in touch with some of them.”