In common with the Queen, an East Ham couple will celebrating their own diamond anniversary this year as they notch up 60 years of married life.

Albert Charles and Isabella Sheila Angus, although they are known as Bert and Bette, have lived most of their lives in the borough.

The couple met in 1948 while Bert was working in the butchery department of a food store in Carpenters Road in Stratford.

Bette’s older sister was courting a butcher and the couple often went roller skating at the Forest Gate skating rink.

It was there that Bert and Bette met and began courting in 1948. They married in 1952 when Queen Elizabeth II acceeded to the throne.

Bert said: “When we were first married, it was seven years after then end of the Second World War but meat did not come off rations un til 1954- that’s nine years after the war. Life was so different then. There is talk of the effects of the recession but its nothing compared to what it was like after the war.”

Bert and Bette lived in Bolyen Road, in Upton Park before spending 27 years in Holme Road. They also lived on an estate in Beckton before buying their current home in Flanders Road, East Ham.

They have two grown-up children, Sue and Steve.

Bette, 84, said they put the success of their long marriage down to “hard work” and “doing things together”.

Bert, who will be 84 in April was even more modest. He said: “I just put it down to give and take. We are both quite placid people and we don’t really shout and holler.”

The couple are not planning elaborate celebrations on March 15 to mark their 60th anniversary.

Bert worked for several local firms, the last one being Akzo Nobel paint company at Silvertown (formerly Courtaulds) and took early retirement just months before the company changed hands.