Watch Online Fresh News: At the age of 97, Henry Kerr has married 87-year-old Valerie Berkowitz after wooing her for four years.

Couple, aged 87 and 97, marry in north London care home

BBC News: 26 July 2010 Last updated

Henry Kerr and Valerie Berkowitz Kerr speak of their courtship
At the age of 97, Henry Kerr has married 87-year-old Valerie Berkowitz after wooing her for four years.
The pair, who met at a residential home in Golders Green, north London, tied the knot in a ceremony at the home on Sunday followed by high tea for 80 guests.
Mr Kerr said when he asked the now Mrs Berkowitz Kerr to marry him she "burst into a hysterical laugh".
She agreed after Mr Kerr said he would not ask her again.

The pair have a combined age of 184. 'Young at heart'
Mr Kerr said: "By the time I was in my mid-90s I found that I was looking at this young lady, I (fancied) her.
"I thought to myself, 'How ridiculous, how could she react to a silly old codger like me'?
"And quite casually one day I said to her, more out of curiosity really, I said, 'What would you say if I asked you to marry me'?
"She burst into hysterical laughter, put down her head on the table and laughed till tears ran down her face."
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What pleases me is people not now saying, 'You know they are living together, they are sleeping together'”
Henry Kerr
His new bride said she had succumbed to Mr Kerr's wooing of her, which had included poetry.
Mrs Berkowitz Kerr said: "When he said to me, after every day saying will you marry me, that 'I'm not going to ask you again', I thought, I'll accept. And I said, 'the marriage is on'."
Mr Kerr, who describes himself as young at heart, said it was important to get married to stop others from gossiping.
"What pleases me is people not now saying, 'You know they are living together, they are sleeping together'."
The pair began their honeymoon with a simple stroll in the garden of their home.
Proving that you are never too old to find love, Henry Kerr, 97, and Valerie Berkowitz, 87, are marrying at Sunridge Court residential home in Golders Green.
When Henry Kerr met an attractive younger woman, he feared she wouldn't give an older man a second glance.
So he embarked on a four-year campaign to win over the object of his affections, writing her love poetry and spending hours exchanging life stories.
And yesterday, 97-year- old Mr Kerr proved you can't hurry love, when he finally wed his younger companion - Valerie Berkowitz, 87.
He said: 'I would have asked her much earlier, if I had thought such an attractive, witty young lady of 87 would have anything to do with an old codger like me.'
Mr Kerr believed his love life was over following his wife Gladys's death in 2004, but said he was 'struck like a thunderbolt' when he met Mrs Berkowitz at the North London care home they share.
He said: 'I thought she found me pushy and conceited - until she acquired an analytical interest in the poems I read at the poetry circle I founded when I moved in here. Then we found our affinities.'
When they started talking, the pair discovered they had both lived in South Africa, and both had families scattered across the world.
He wrote several love poems in an attempt to win her affections.
Mr Kerr, who moved to the care home in 2006 when he was 94, said: 'When I did ask her to marry me a few months ago she went hysterical - she put her head down on the table and couldn't stop laughing.'
Even once Mrs Berkowitz had accepted the proposal, the couple expected to stay permanently engaged to avoid the ' complication' of marriage.
But Mr Kerr, who ran an investment company before retirement, said: 'I felt people were whispering behind their hands and gossiping about us moving in together, and that it was important for us to be Mr and Mrs.'
The couple finally married in a traditional Jewish ceremony yesterday at their care home in Golders Green, followed by a high tea for 90 guests.
The newlyweds, who have six children, 19 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren between them, will embark on a one-day honeymoon today but plan to keep its location a secret.
The new Mrs Kerr, a former biochemist and counsellor whose first husband Abraham died in 2005 at the age of 82, said: 'Almost immediately after Henry arrived at the home, we started gravitating towards each other, from breakfast on.
'He is so totally talented and full of fun, yet also very serious.
'He's different from my late husband in every way, except that they both had enormous brain power. It's absolutely incredible that we found each other so late in life and that we are so loving - and lovely - together.
'We go to museums and galleries and theatres in groups - but we are off for a day trip honeymoon all by ourselves, and are thinking about a cruise.'
Mr and Mrs Kerr will keep their two rooms at the home, although they will use one as a bedroom and another as a study.
The couple have also walked away with the title of Britain's oldest newlyweds - previously held by Les Atwell, 94, and Sheila Walsh, 87.