HUDDERSFIELD revellers Jack and Jean Atkinson will welcome in the new year tonight by partying into the early hours.

The Fixby couple, both a young 79, are no strangers to the clubbing scene, having more stamina than most students!

They go clubbing five times a week and - unlike most youngsters - they do not laze around in bed the next day.

Jack and Jean are going to Luminar Leisure's new £3.5m club, Liquid Diva, to dance into the early hours of New Year's Day.

Jean said: "We go to student nights. We are the oldest students in town!

"Young people are marvellous with us.

"We've had nothing but respect. We wouldn't know what to say to someone our own age."

Jack and Jean have been regulars at Luminar Leisure's Visage nightclub at Folly Hall since it opened in 1995.

They shunned the company's neighbouring Ethos over-25s club - because they thought it was too old- fashioned.

To date, they have racked up 1,772 visits to Visage - including cele- brating their golden wedding there in 1995.

They are such good customers that Luminar Leisure gives them free entry badges for all its 340 clubs.

Jack and Jean enjoy nights out all over Yorkshire and give themselves Sundays and Mondays off to recover.

The couple have always loved partying. They visited the dance halls of the 1950s and 60s and the discos of the 1970s and 80s. Now they get down to the best dance DJs of today.

Jean said: "We like modern, up-to- date music. The only thing I can't stand is r'n'b."

Surprisingly, Jack and Jean did not meet in a club.

They met at a Sunday afternoon gathering in Princes Street in Edinburgh in June, 1945.

Jack, who was born in Hudders- field, served on a minesweeper in the Royal Navy and was stationed at Edinburgh.

Jean, who was born in the Scottish capital, was working in a factory making gyroscopes for gunsights.

The couple married 15 days after meeting.

Jean said: "You didn't waste time in those days. There was a war on and if you cared about someone you married them quick, because you might never see them again."

After the war, the couple returned to Huddersfield and Jack spent nine years working at the ICI chemical firm on Leeds Road.

During the Korean War of 1950 to 1953 he was recalled to the Royal Navy for 18 months, to serve on a destroyer.

He then began working as a specialist refractory bricklayer for an engineering firm.

His work took the couple to Calgary, Canada, from 1955 to 1960 and then to San Francisco in California.

They stayed there until 1980, when Jack retired.

They then moved to Fixby.

Jean said: "It gets expensive to live in America when you are older, with healthcare and suchlike. So we moved here. But our attitude has come from living in California, because age means nothing there."

The couple's two sons and two grandsons still live in California.

They also have a daughter, one grandson and one grand-daughter, all living in England.

Although they live thousands of miles away, Jack and Jean's family can keep up with their partying by logging on to the couple's website.

Jack set up the site four years ago, when he bought a computer.

He included a short description of his and Jean's lives and photos of them on their nights out - in their trademark colourful outfits.

They have around 450 outfits - all in bright colours - which Jean makes herself with a sewing machine she bought during the 1940s.

Once Jack learnt to use his digital camera properly, he began to take it on nights out and put the pictures on his website.

The couple have been stunned to see that by last Christmas Eve the computer's "hit" counter read 20,244.

The couple know their lifestyle may not be everyone's idea of fun, but say it is vital for older people to stay active.

Their website can be viewed at http://freespace.virgin.net/jaje.dancers/