The pair became inseparable from the moment they met – Jenny says it was because she never wanted to take the chance of someone else snapping David up! – but the pair also admit their special bond may well have something to do with them both being profoundly deaf.

The couple, who are regular faces at West Norfolk Deaf Association's Deaf Centre in Lynn, communicate using sign language and, despite the challenges each accepts being deaf presents in daily life, perhaps surprisingly to those who do not share their "disability", both say they would not choose to have their hearing restored.

Speaking through a sign language interpreter, Jenny (45), who has had no sense of hearing since she was six weeks old, said: "I love being deaf. It is so peaceful."

Jenny and David (55), of Fairstead, Lynn, have two hearing children – Harry (11) and Charlie (nine) and while they would not swap their boys, Jenny admits she can relate to the controversial desire of some deaf couples to have a deaf baby – a topic that has come to a head recently as a result of one couple's battle for the right to choose a deaf embryo through IVF.

Jenny and David's communication with their own children has the significant added, but unrelated, difficulty of both boys suffering to differing degrees with autism – something they are working through as a family and with outside support.

On a day-to-day basis their deafness also creates the obvious hurdles of communication presented by hospital and doctors' appointments, with which they usually have to enlist the help of an interpreter, and shopping. Neither writing things down nor having an interpreter are complete solutions – with either there can be misunderstandings, partly due to differences in the order of sentences and vocabulary between British Sign Language and the spoken word, the couple explain.

As a result it is perhaps unsurprising they hold the deaf centre in very high regard.