Rustington couple’s marriage born of blitz spirit

Sweethearts since attending Sunday School, they made their romance work with wartime rationing amid a blitzed-out wasteland.

June was ‘devastated’ when Albert joined the RAF in 1944. A number of young men from their church had served the country as pilots, and never made it back home.

With no money for buses and trains, serving at bases around the UK, Albert had to hitch lifts home to see June.

Concerned that he was to be sent to the Far East, the couple pledged to marry after the war. But despite having embarkation papers, Albert was instead posted to the Air Ministry in London.

As soon as he was demobbed, they married on June 12, 1948, at Stroud Green Baptist Church, with a guard of honour by the Boys’ Brigade and Girls’ Brigade.

“The church was packed,” June recalled. “I was petrified as I went down the aisle. I remember my mum turning to me and whispering, ‘Don’t be scared. You’ll be alright’.”

Their first home was a condemned flat with no bathroom. They had two sons there – David and Philip – before moving to Harrow, where daughters Chrissy, Janice and Jackie were born.

They helped friends lead a Sunday School on a prisoner-of-war estate and Albert enjoyed a successful career in life insurance. But surviving a serious car accident in 1974 convinced him to become a full-time church minister.

In 1975, the family moved to West Sussex and Albert became pastor of Fittleworth Evangelical Free Church. Three years later, he took over the running of the Good News Christian bookshop in Beach Road, Littlehampton.

They returned to lead their old church in Harrow for a time and served as chaplains of the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem, just after the Gulf War in the 1990s.

Now 86, Albert led countless tours to Israel and, with June, took groups to the Oberammergau Passion Play in Bavaria.

Albert and June, of Sea Road, have been active members of various churches, including Littlehampton Baptist Church and Arun Community Church, and have supported numerous charitable causes.

Sadly, a long struggle against cancer has meant that Albert has had to have some respite care.

But that did not stop the couple celebrating their blue sapphire anniversary with cards, cake and family – they have 17 grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.

Asked about the secret of success in marriage, they simply replied: “It’s all about considering one another, respecting one another.”