Fitness at any age ‘I'LL DO THIS UNTIL I DROP!'

Peter and Barbara have kept their community fit for decades

- Brigid Auchettl

Approaching Barbara and Peter Hill’s shed in Fryerstown, Victoria, visitors are greeted by the sound of laughter and Neil Diamond’s hit Sweet Caroline.

Inside, Peter, 76, helps locals work up a sweat in his “hodgepodge” gym. Then he moves his equipment aside to make way for his wife Barbara, who has been teaching locals to line dance for 26 years – despite being “full of arthritis”!

“I love it so much,” says Barbara, who takes to the dancefloor twice a week. “I didn’t dance for a couple of years because of my arthritis but [then] I made myself do it again – it gives me a lift.”

The shed was built by Barbara’s parents, who taught ballroom dance classes. It was here she became friends with Peter’s mother, who set the couple up on a blind date in 1991. They haven’t stopped laughing together since.