A couple celebrated both Christmas and their 70th wedding anniversary today and still live near the street where they first met and played as children 83 years ago.
Alec Naulls, 90, and wife Edna, 89, tied the knot on December 25, 1947.
Mr Naulls was 20 when they married and his bride was a year younger but the couple first met 13 years earlier.
Alec and Edna Naulls from Hornchurch celebrated their 70th anniversary on Chritstmas day, the couple still live near the street where they met and played together when Edna was six
They lived on the same street, Rothwell Road, in Dagenham, East London, and were both pupils at nearby Dawson Infant School.
But the friends were tragically parted when they were evacuated out of London in 1939 because of the Second World War.
The frightened children boarded trains without any idea of where they would end up.
Mr Naulls became a soldier after living on a farm in Banbury, Oxfordshire.
He was reunited with Edna, who had been living on a farm in Somerset, in 1946 and the couple fell in love.
After their Christmas wedding in 1947, they settled in the East End of London, in a house built on a former Spitfire aerodrome in Hornchurch.
They live there to this day.
Mr Naulls attributed the length of their marriage to ‘an equal partnership.’
He said: ‘We have always put each other first. It has been an equal partnership.’
They have four great-grandchildren, seven grandchildren, and had four children, Brenda and Terrence both 67, Allen, 66, and Linda, 61.
The couple married in 1947 after Alec managed to get ten days of leave from the army to tie the knot at St John’s Church in Becontree – the couple married in the same year as the Queen and Prince Philip
Their wedding, at St John’s Church, Becontree, took place when Mr Naulls was home on leave for ten days, in the same year that the Queen married Prince Philip.
Mrs Naulls said: ‘The year 1947 has been important to us and the Queen. We are delighted to be able to share such a milestone with them.’
Her husband added: ‘Our anniversary has been wonderful over the years because Christmas is a time to celebrate anyway, plus we have always been able to celebrate with our family.’
The couple’s story is a touching one.
In 1946, while on leave from the army, Mr Naulls worked up the courage to see if Edna would go out with him.
But instead of asking her directly, he asked his older sister Rose to ask Edna’s mother.
They continued their romance despite the chaos of war, and across a great distance as Mr Naulls was based in Hannover, Germany.
The year after they fell in love, he was able to secure a ten-day pass over the Christmas period of 1947, and rushed home for the wedding, before dashing back to the army on New Year’s Eve.
Their son Allen said: ‘Mum was born under the sound of the Bow Bells – they’re both East Enders.
‘Until 18 months ago they still went ballroom dancing, and Dad does the gardening and Mum does the housework.
‘They’re always going out shopping, getting on the tube, and until recently Dad was still towing a caravan around.’
Mrs Naulls had a special message for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in the wake of their engagement.
She said: ‘It’s wonderful news, we wish them a long and happy a life together, as we have shared.’