As for seeing twins, I can hardly bear the yearning.”They met in 1984 when Richard was 25 and Julia 44. She had been invited by a friend to a charity fashion show at which Richard was one of the amateur models. They met at the gathering afterwards and attraction was instant and mutual. Before the first day of the hearing at the Law Courts in the Strand she had never made a public speech in her life.Richard Spindler, 36, was an acupuncturist until the stresses of the long legal battle took their toll and his practice collapsed. She is beautiful in the manner of Anouk Aimee or Anne Bancroft, with the same bell of dark hair surrounding a finely boned face. She wears no make-up, drinks no alcohol or coffee, and worried about the environment back in the Sixties, years before it had begun to trouble most people.

Richard Spindler and Julia Verity seem at first glance a classically ordinary English couple: middle-class, middle-aged, modestly blinking in the limelight of media attention after the judge handed down judgment. But look a little closer and the reality turns out to be very different.
Julia Verity is 55, divorced with two grown-up sons, a former junior school teacher. Monday’s award of pounds 77,500 damages gave them victory in principle, though whether it also turns out to be victory in terms of their eventual monetary reward has yet to be decided They may still end up bankrupt. They spent five years researching legal precedents and assembling their evidence and acted as “litigants in person” – conducting their own case – during the 12-day hearing in May this year. Alleging that Lloyds was responsible for their financial losses due to bad business advice, they pursued the Black Horse Bank all the way to the High Court. Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union will walk out for 24 hours from 6.30pm on Wednesday, 13 September 13 and from 12 noon on Thursday, 21 September..

They are an unusual – indeed, to use their own word, an odd couple, Richard Spindler and Julia Verity; and not just because they took on the might of Lloyds Bank and (up to a point) won. Non-smokers get 15p an hour more at Briggs and Shoe Mines, which employs 57 staff at its five branches.. Tube strikes set

Travellers face further disruption in London after leaders of thousands of tube workers called two further strikes over pay. Hush, puffies

Staff at a chain of shoe shops in Cumbria have a healthy shine on their pay slips – but only if they don’t smoke. Their father, an official at the Nigerian High Commission, escaped by jumping from an upstairs window of the semi-detached house in Golders Green, north London.. The name was being withheld until released by the Canadian coroner Further bodies are expected to be recovered today.

Brothers die in fire

Three brothers aged 9, 10 and 11 died when fire engulfed their home. Nimrod body found

Canadian military divers have recovered the body of one of the seven RAF men killed when their Nimrod aircraft plunged into Lake Ontario on Saturday. Its “price watch” scheme could be extended across the country, forcing other firms to fight back.. Allitt death threats

A patient at Rampton top security hospital has been jailed for nine years to protect the killer nurse Beverley Allitt.