SLOANS, one of the city's oldest bar/restaurants, has a starring role in the new Stone of Destiny movie. For generations of Glaswegians the restored A-listed building has a special place in their hearts. SHEILA HAMILTON meets a couple who made a life-time commitment in the historic pub.

TEARS coursed down George McLelland's cheeks as he and his young bride stood before the minister in Sloans in Glasgow's Argyle Arcade.

At the time, his new wife, Susan, assumed he was just being a tad emotional.

"He can cry at the drop of a pin," she says affectionately, nearly six decades later.

But at last, George, now 80 and a well-known big band musician for many years, reveals he was terrified of what he was letting himself in for.

As he took his vows on that day in 1949, George couldn't have cared less about Sloans' stunning ballroom and banqueting hall with its ornate vaulted ceiling, marble fireplace, rare acid-etched glass windows and rich woodwork.

"All I could think of was that marriage was such a serious thing," he says with a big sigh. "Such a big step to take."

"You weren't getting cold feet, were you?" asks Susan in mock alarm. She should worry, four children - Anne, George, Carol and Stewart - eight grandchildren and one great grandchild later.

"Today, they're all frightened of commitment. Back then, it had to be for life," says George, solemnly. George was just 23, Susan 21. And, as Susan points out: "We had no money."

"We knew nothing about one another really," George said, looking at Susan, 78. "I knew I loved you, but it was just the commitment which took the courage. It was a big jump."

Although it wasn't as if they'd rushed into things. "We'd been going out together for four or five years and were engaged for a couple of years," adds George.

"I got a job on the railway because my mother told me I could bring up a family on that."

His mother knew what it was to struggle on her own in a tenement in St Georges Cross to bring up their five children.

Her husband, who was gassed during the First World War, turned to drink and they split up."There was never any money," says George.

"I can remember going to the pawnshop each week to get money for food.

"We took the chairs out by the back court so no one would see."

His sister, Nan, was the first policewoman in Glasgow. "I would get a row when I wore her greatcoat because it made me look like Humphrey Bogart.

"She said I'd get her the sack if I was found out, but we never had any clothes."

George started work at 13 at the local fruiterer's for 10 shillings a week and gave his mother nine shillings of it.

"For all my faults, I made sure Susan got a wage every week and that she didn't have the unhappiness my mother did."

When the war came, George joined the Merchant Navy at 16 and saw service in the troopships. He retired after 34 years as an electricity meter man.

However, he was still in the Merchant Navy when he and Susan first met at a dance at the Dennistoun Palais.

"It took about three quarters of an hour to get from Dennistoun to Anniesland on the trams," says George.

"She had to be home for 10.30 pm, we were half an hour late one night and I was told never to darken their door again.

"Sometimes when I met her I fell asleep because I'd been working all night on the railway since the night before."

Looking at their wedding group, Susan recalls how she was gratefully wearing her sister's cast-off wedding dress at a time when there was still rationing after the war.

"She was engaged but the wedding fell through and I fell heir to the dress."

Susan remembers her mother was determined that her daughter, the first of the family to be married, would have a wedding to remember and so Sloans was chosen.

The venue began life as a coffee house built in 1797 by Bailie John Morrison and renamed when David Sloan bought what was then called the Arcade Cafe at the turn of the 20th century.

The couple still have the bill for the meal at Sloans - Susan's parents paid £27 10 shillings for three-courses for 70 guests.

And then the happy couple went on a tramcar to their new digs in a "miserable" room in a tenement in Dixon Avenue with a "miserable" landlady to spend their first night together.

And it really was their first night together. "There was no living together back then," says Susan. "My father was strict with his girls."

And then, because George worked on the railways, they got a free pass up to Aberdeen for a few days' honeymoon.

George chuckled. "I remember I bought a frying pan up there. It was the one thing we didn't have of all the presents."

They hated their first home.

"It was awful," said Susan. "Horrible. When George was on shift work, I would wake in the night hearing the mice.

"When I had my daughter, Anne, I would walking with her in the pram rather than go back to that empty room."

George had given up his music lessons while they were courting but he took it up again after they married and was soon supplementing their income by playing clarinet and saxophone with the big bands locally like George McGowan and Harry Margolis in all the Glasgow ballrooms. In his day, he played for the BBC and ITV.

So what's the secret of their long and happy marriage?

"We'll do anything for each other, but we give each other space," chuckled George.

"I'm upstairs and she's downstairs. She loves jigsaws and things and spends a lot of time down here and I practice my music upstairs."

It was a proud moment when they bought their council house when George was 68 and an even prouder moment when they moved to their present home in Giffnock, their first with a garden, 13 years ago. No matter that the mortgage won't be paid off till George is 92.

Meantime, they're looking forward to returning to Sloans for a special meal - and a chance to take in the unique atmosphere that they were too wound up to appreciate first time round.

Their long and happy marriage has been an inspiration to the younger generation.

Their granddaughter Jenny Wallace, 25, says: "It's really touching - and encouraging, given the state of most modern day relationships - to see a couple like my grandparents, who still retain a loving and fun relationship after all these years."