Married polio survivors who were placed on the same insolation unit as children are calling for one last push to eradicate the disease.

Lower Kingswood couple David and Sue Smith have been married for 43 years and are supporting the One Last Push campaign urging the public to pressure the government to help rid the world of the virus in the hope that other children will not suffer as they did.

David is a retired NHS accountant who wears a full-length leg brace on his left leg, and Sue is a retired primary school teacher whose right leg is two-and-a-half inches shorter than her left leg.

Sue was 15 months old and David, 12 months, when they were placed on the same isolation unit in Gravesend, Kent, where their families lived and worked.

Sue acknowledges how lucky she and David were that the NHS existed when they contracted polio.

She said: “If it hadn’t been there, our families would have struggled to pay for our treatment and we wouldn’t have had access to the equipment we needed.”

The disease has not stopped them from making the most of their lives.

Sue is in the Women’s Institute, sings in two choirs, plays the piano and is a member of a handbell team.

David is now an advisor at the Citizens Advice in Reigate, is the treasurer and trustee of a charity that helps people after a stroke, and also plays guitar.

They have also raised two sons, Adam, 40, and Oliver, 38, and have four grandchildren.

The couple has asked their MP Crispin Blunt to do what he can to ensure the government commits to ending polio.

In 2013, the UK pledged up to £300 million over six years to help vaccinate about 360 million children, and the following year India was declared polio-free.

Up until the 1980s, polio was still paralysing people and Sue and David are two of more than 120,000 men and women suffering from the after-effects of this devastating disease in the UK.

Polio is now only endemic in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria, but cheap vaccines have helped push the disease into steep decline.

If it was eliminated, it would be only the second disease – after small pox – in human history that has been eradicated.

Reigate and Banstead MP Crispin Blunt said: “After centuries of suffering caused by poliovirus, its end is in sight.

“There is a genuine opportunity for us to eradicate polio by 2020 – and we need leaders to back the efforts of the millions of volunteers and health workers around the world who are working to end the disease.

“I am pleased to be associated with this campaign to recognise the wonderful work that is being done to eradicate polio. Together with One Last Push, we have the opportunity to change the world for better and deliver a lasting global legacy.”

For more information, visit www.onelastpush.org