We’ve done everything together for 60 years, including our charity collections

No, they are not bank robbers augmenting their pensions, nor are they people who insist on keeping their life savings close to their bosom. In fact, Tony and Doreen, from Rayleigh, will be on their way to the National Westminster Bank to deposit the latest mound of coins they have collected from sites across Essex.

Tony and Doreen pick up small change donations from collecting tins, on behalf of the Royal National Institute for the Blind. At its peak, the round of pubs, clubs, shops and other collecting points covered 400 sites across Essex. It may be small change, but it adds up to big money. In 23 years of collecting, their efforts, according to the RNIB’s figures, have contributed more than £250,000 to RNIB funds, although Tony stresses: “We didn’t actually count the money ourselves.”

Tony, 83, and Doreen, 81, are currently celebrating another impressive number together. This month they reach their 60th wedding anniversary.

Hardly any of the past 60 years has been spent apart, and that includes their charity work, which acts as an automatic bonding exercise. “We always travel around Essex together,”

Doreen says. “Tony does the driving, and we collect the money, as a couple.”

Tony adds: “One run has six pubs in it, which is a bit crazy, because I don’t drink.”

Most of the money is in small change, but Tony and Doreen did once find a £50 note in a Southend pub.

“Apparently the man who put it there had just won the Lottery,” Tony says.

The couple became RNIB volunteers after Doreen’s mother became blind, as a result of diabetes. “I could see at first hand the work the RNIB did for people, like the talking books,” Doreen says. “I was so grateful, and I wanted to give something back.”

Tony, originally from Stanford-le-Hope, and Doreen, from Corringham, were born within five miles of one another. They went to the same local school, Stanford-le-Hope Secondary, but neither made much impression on the other at that stage. “I was more interested in playing football than girls, back then,” says Tony.

It was at the local youth club where they became conscious of each other for the first time. Doreen remembers Tony playing table tennis “and putting a lot of energy into it”. Tony remembers Doreen dancing.

“As we got to know each other, I started to dance, and she started to play table tennis,” Tony says.

Doreen is also a sports enthusiast. “Nowadays, we spend a lot of our time, when we’re not out collecting, watching Sky Sports together,” says Tony. A dedicated Southend United fan and seasonticket holder, Tony still attends the majority of the Blues’ home matches.

His own career as an amateur footballer came to an end with an accident in 1958. “It was a fair tackle that went wrong, but it put me out of action for a year, and it left me with a limp,”

he says. He recalls that the accident happened on the same weekend as the tragic Munich air crash, which killed eight members of the Manchester United team.

After leaving school, Tony joined the Shell Oil company. “Working for Shell was a bit of a family tradition,” he says. The family link extended even further when Doreen took a job in the Shell canteen. “We used to serve a thousand meals a day there,” she says.

Tony completed an apprenticeship in engineering, and went on to gain a degree. Then he hit a ceiling in career terms.

“When it came to promotion, they just seemed to prefer university types to hands-on people like me, although I had got a degree while I was doing the job,”

he says.

At this point, the couple made a life-changing decision. Tony left Shell, and signed up with Texaco for a three-year contract in Trinidad. “In the end we had to come back early, when my wife lost her baby,” Tony says.

Tony then found work for a while with the oil industry back in England, but at the age of 52 he was made redundant. It was time for another life-changing move.

“There were no jobs in the industry for engineers in their fifties, so I became a maths teacher,” Tony says.

He adds: “I took to it quite well, and the kids seemed to appreciate what I did.” He taught at Thorpe Hall private school, and at a comprehensive in Basildon.

“What a contrast,” Tony says.

Wedding day – Tony and Doreen Little in 1955

Tony has never completely given up teaching. He continues to coach young people privately for exams.

One of the few times when the couple were briefly separated came in 1992.

Doreen’s father, Eric Copping, had been a soldier in the Far East during the Second WorldWar, and died on the notorious Burma Railway. He was just 36 years old. Doreen travelled with a group of veterans and family to Thailand and Singapore, where she visited sites associated with Eric.

“We attended a service as the sun came up,” says Doreen. “It was very moving.”

Despite its name, the Little family has grown fast, and now includes two children, two grandchildren, and one great-grandchild, born in October. All of them will gather for the 60th anniversary celebration.

Asked the secret of a long, happymarriage, Tony answers: “When your wife speaks to you, just reply ‘Yes dear, you’re right’.”

As for Mrs Right herself, she does not offer any formula. Doreen simply says: “Find yourself a wonderful husband, which I did.”