Charles and Amy Goodchild, born and raised in Ascot, celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary with a family meal on Saturday evening and were surprised with a celebratory cake made specially for the event.

Married in 1955, the couple have one son and two grandsons, who all together Mrs Goodchild calls her ‘four boys’.

She said: “I have my husband, my son and my two grandsons, Cole and Richard. I call them my four boys and I love each of them to bits. We’ve had a good life – we never thought we would make 60 though! But we have enjoyed ourselves and been on nice holidays, one of our favourites was Las Vegas in 1981.

“We don’t keep secrets from one another, we tell each other everything, and we share. It’s not his money or my money, it’s our money and everything is joint. We have had hard times when we didn’t have much at all.” Mr Goodchild, now 85, and Mrs Goodchild, 82, ended up working together at Imperial College by the end of their careers, Charles as one of two maintenance electricians, and Amy as a cleaner in the laboratories in the Silwood Park campus, something which they both enjoyed.

The pair moved to Malton in Yorkshire to be closer to their now grown-up grandchildren, but returned to top Sunninghill hotel Macdonald Berystede for a three-course meal and drinks ahead of their official anniversary tomorrow (Thursday).

Mrs Goodchild said: “I enjoyed all of my jobs really, but I did enjoy working at the college.

“We both retired around 20 years ago and decided to sell up and move to Yorkshire because we only saw our eldest grandson for one week in the first year of his life. We wanted to spend more time with them.

“It was a good thing we moved as our daughter-in-law died from lung cancer nine years ago, even though she didn’t smoke, so we helped my son Keith with the boys afterwards.” The couple will have a quiet dinner tomorrow to mark the special occasion.