Couple's love that has survived ages

She's a 60-year-old grandmother with a soft spot for Phillip Schofield. He's a 29-year-old techno music fan who fancies Lorraine Kelly.

Ten years after their love story began, Brighton couple Chris and Norma Harvey's unconventional relationship is still attracting media attention.

It would have broken many others but the publicity, the doubters, the sniggers and the sneers have failed to divide them.

In fact Chris, who went to school with Katie Price and says he once took her to the cinema, insists he wouldn't swap his pensioner wife for the subject of a million male fantasies.

"Jordan's all right if you like that kind of thing," he says. "But I'm with the woman of my dreams."

Norma, was just out of a 27-year marriage when she met Chris, then barely 18. She says: "We do everything 50-50. I used to run his bath, put his underpants and socks out in the morning and make his dinner at night. But I refuse to run his bath now. We're equals."

Ask them what they think of fellow age-gap couple Simon Martin, 31, and his wife Edna, 70, whose relationship hit the headlines last year, and the pair roll their eyes.

"We don't like being compared to them," says Norma. "They're only starting out but we've been to hell and back together."

The couple met ten years ago and celebrate their eighth wedding anniversary in August.

Chris said: "People said it wouldn't last ten weeks, never mind ten years. A friend at Brighton Labour club bet me £50 I wouldn't be with her in six weeks. Then he changed it to six months, then six years. Unfortunately he moved away, so I never got to collect my winnings."

The media attention started within weeks of their meeting when a photographer jumped out of a hedge and told them his tabloid newspaper was running a story with or without their co-operation.

Chris said: "We do feel used by the media sometimes and we've been badly ripped off and misquoted over the years. The most recent story said Norma dresses all in white leather and that she calls me Tarzan. But that was the first time anyone's ever called me Tarzan and Norma wouldn't be seen dead in leather."

"You wanted me to wear a pair of leather trousers once," interrupts Norma. "No I didn't," retorts her husband with a smirk that suggests otherwise.

Chris continues: "We've been on Tricia nine times, Vanessa twice, Kilroy twice and Esther but we'd really like to do reality TV. We get annoyed when we see people like Lizzy Bardsley (who found fame in Channel 4's Wife Swap). We first went on television in 1996 and didn't get anything for it. We missed the reality TV boat but people still think we're rich."

"We're not proper celebrities but we're not normal either," adds Norma.

"We're always getting asked for our autographs. The other day a group of girls came up in Asda and said they recognised us from GMTV. We didn't ask for the attention but we're used to it now and would miss it if it stopped. But it's not what keeps us together. We've been through far too much for that."

Their story began in 1996 at a Butlins holiday camp in Wales. Teenager Chris was with his family, Norma on her own as she recovered from her marriage break-up.

Chris spotted the glamorous woman with the dark tan, perfectly applied make-up and white stillettos and thought she looked like a film star.

He said: "I just thought 'I've got no chance', but decided I'd go and talk to her anyway."

Norma thought the teenage lothario looked a bit rough with his shaven head and Hawaiian shirt. She recalls: "When he came up I was holding my shoes because my feet hurt. I remember clutching my handbag a bit tighter. He asked me to go for a drink but I told him I had to go back to my chalet because my feet were killing me. I thought that would put him off but he said OK and offered me a piggyback, even though I was a size 20."

Back at the chalet Norma invited her young admirer in for a coffee. One thing led to another and Chris ended up staying.

Norma said: "I just thought, so he's a young lad but if he doesn't mind neither do I. I'd been going through a really hard time and wanted to do something for me."

Chris said: "I woke up the next morning and thought this had better not be the only time I wake up with her."

It wasn't. The pair stayed in touch and when they met up three weeks later at a caravan site near Prestatyn, Chris proposed.

"I'd been with girls my own age but related to Norma more. I knew something was there that hadn't been there before. I knew I didn't want to lose her."

Norma left her home in Manchester and moved to Brighton, where the couple moved in with Chris's grandmother.

The couple still live in the flat in Whitehawk.

The relationship has not always been easy but despite the occasional hiccup including, in the early days, Chris sleeping with two of Norma's cousins, attacks on their home, a failed surrogacy bid and Norma's deteriorating health (she has arthritis, diverticulitis, glaucoma and a leaky heart valve) they are still going strong.

Chris, who worked for an insurance company but is now unemployed, said: "At the beginning people were always saying 'She's too old for you, you're ruining your life, she'll be 92 when you're 60' and for a while it got to me. I wasn't sure what I wanted. But in the end I said "That's it, I'm not listening any more'. I knew I wanted a life with Norma.

"It's hard work sometimes. We've been spat at and still get funny looks, mostly from older people. But I've no regrets. I'll still love her when she's got plastic hips and a zimmer."

Former beauty queen Norma, who has had botox on her eyes and injections to make her lips plumper, is determined to hang on to her looks and plans surgery to lift her 40DD bosom.

Now a shapely size 18, she said: "Chris didn't like my trout pout but I do it for me, not him. I want a J-Lo bum and a tummy lift. My daughter wants me to have a blue rinse and look like a grandma but I want to stay young."

The couple share a love of cats and karaoke. They have different musical tastes she likes Jamie Cullum and Katie Melua, he likes hard house but even here they have found common ground.

Norma said: "I love dance music. I can't stand Tom Jones."

Chris said: "I've introduced her to banging techno. People must see us driving past Churchill Square with the speakers blasting out and say 'There goes that age-gap couple again'. The other day her Cole Porter was doing my head in but I like some of her easy listening stuff."

Norma, a retired cabaret singer, has just recorded her own CD of easy listening classics, Let There Be Love. With profits going to the International Glaucoma Association, she is looking for a local firm to help with production.

In an attempt to set the record straight, Chris and Norma have written their own book they hope could be on bookshelves before the end of the year.