Diamond wedding anniversary couple receive one of the Queen's last congratulatory cards
A Wolverhampton couple have received one of the last anniversary messages sent out during the Queen's 70-year reign.
Margaret and Bernard Anthony Price, from Gorse Road in Wednesfield, celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary on Thursday after marrying at Holy Trinity Church, Heath Town, on September 8 1962.
To mark the occasion, the couple received a congratulatory card from Her Majesty. The card arrived on Wednesday which was also Bernard's 82nd birthday.
Grandson Jamie said: "They were over the moon. They were amazed and thought it was lovely.
"It's extra special now, it means the world to them."
The card has been put on display along with flowers and other cards sent to celebrate their 60-year marriage, with family members gathering at their home this week to celebrate their anniversary.
"It was wonderful," Margaret said. "We do love her."
Margaret and Bernard are lifelong fans of the Royal Family, and have taken their grandchildren on several tours of Buckingham Palace.
"They are royalists," Jamie added.
Margaret, who is currently battling a long illness, recalled an event from when she was a child in the early 1950s.
"When I was 10 years old I helped to get the horse manure off the road," she said. Margaret would jump from her bedroom window in the morning, down to the floor below and then into the front garden as it was the "quickest way" to get down to the road and clear the manure.
"I fell from the top of the house and onto the floor," Margaret continued.
With the help of her mother she was taken back upstairs to bed and the doctor visited.
"He was crying his eyes out," she said. "I said 'what's wrong', and my mother said 'haven't you heard, the King has died?'. I'll never forget that man's face."
Margaret and Bernard have two children, Linda and John, as well as four grandchildren - Lee, Jamie, Ryan and Laura.
Messages are sent by the Monarch for those celebrating their 100th and 105th birthdays, and every year after that, as well as couples enjoying their 60th and 65thwedding anniversaries, as well as every anniversary from 70 years onwards, in a tradition dating back to 1917.
The Anniversaries Office has said it is not currently sending congratulatory messages in the wake of the Queen's death, while submitted applications are not being currently processed.
A statement on the Royal Family website adds: "If you have already made an online or postal application to the Anniversaries Office, it will be processed when operations resume, and you will receive confirmation that a message has been arranged."
