Britain's oldest identical twins who have been inseparable for 82 years with matching clothes and same jobs

Britain's oldest identical twins who have been inseparable for 82 years with matching clothes and same jobs Bill and John Bowdler have been inseparable from the day there were born and still do everything together, from working the same jobs and wearing the same outfits The UK's oldest identical twins have lived together, worn matching clothes and even held the same jobs for 82 years, but there's one difference between the pair. Bill and John Bowdler, from Birmingham, holiday together and put their remarkable health down to their unbreakable brotherly bond. The lifelong bachelors have been inseparable since they were born on March 21, 1944, and still do everything together - right down to working the very same two jobs. But there's one difference - while Bill loves a bit of brown sauce on his food, John can't stand the stuff. After leaving school in 1960, both brothers joined the same wholesale distribution firm in Birmingham. When the business collapsed, they switched careers together and retrained as postmen. The pair even needed a cataract operation on the same eye at the same time, carried out in the same surgery. John said: "We've always been inseparable, from birth although I was born 20 minutes earlier than Bill so I was on my own for a little bit. We do literally everything together and I couldn't imagine it any other way." Now enjoying retirement, John picks out their matching outfits most days - a tradition that dates back to their mother Agnes. He added: "We're that alike we can't even tell ourselves apart in old photographs. We dress in the same clothes. I'm normally up first so I go and pick something out and then Bill will go and match that. "It all started with our mother dressing us both up the same. We finish our sentences which just naturally happens. We find it happens all the time. And neither of us have never married. We've got a really close relationship anyway, we didn't have the time to bother with the opposite sex. "Our aunt and uncle lived next door, too. So we were quite busy caring for them and our parents. We should've been carers. When we were kids we were paper boys with the local news agent and we found out that one of the customers was a manager of the wholesaler distributor. "They were wanting a junior to start. Both of us went up and they set us on as they liked that we were twins. We stayed there 31 years. The firm went into liquidation and they ceased trading. We were unemployed for 14 weeks. "We ten pin bowl and one of the players in the league was a postman, and he said to apply for the post during the summer period. We ended up staying there 17 years. We enjoyed it, we were one adjacent routes so we'd see each other." Bill added that people would even confuse the two brothers. He said: "We retired in 2009 on the same day, so we really haven't been apart. When you start they put you on different walks, but we ended up on adjacent walks. People used to see us both and get confused at how we were in two places at once." The longest time the pair have spent apart was when John spent a fortnight in hospital recovering from appendicitis, followed by a further 12 weeks away from work. The inseparable duo do their weekly shop together, enjoy trips to the bingo, cheer on their cherished Aston Villa, and even jet off on holiday side by side. While they may consume identical meals daily, John points out the sole difference between them is his aversion to brown sauce, whereas Bill douses everything in it. Bill continued: "It's odd because we're not a family of twins "The only other twins our family were a pair of girls from the 1870s, and that's it. For us, being together is like habit now. We can't break it. John gets up first so he decides what we wear and we like it like that." The brothers surprised opticians during their routine eye examination when it emerged that both needed cataract surgery - on the same eye. The duo underwent their procedures at Newmedica in Birmingham just one month apart. Bill explained: "We've both had the right eye done. John had his done in April, mine in May. John is having his left eye done in July then mine in September. We went to Specsavers and they saw the cataract. We both went to Specsavers together and that's when they found it, at the same time." Professor Sai Kolli, consultant at Newmedica Birmingham, said: "They're the first twins we've had as patients here, and it must be such a rare occurrence to have them both have the same procedure on the same eyes." Reflecting on how their bond works in their favour, John added: "We're 82 but we feel 70. There's people on our estate, our former school mates, and they're hobbling around or in wheelchairs. We're definitely one of the oldest sets of identical twins in the world. We have each other so we can keep each other fit. We just keep active. It keeps us ticking and alive."