THERE was four times the fun at a Bribie Island retirement community this week, when four couples celebrated a whopping 240 years of marriage between them.
Loved-up couples Margaret and Peter Steptoe, Bill and Cilla Hassall, Mike and Alice Larking and Bill and Lil Stent joined fellow residents at Bolton Clarke’s Bongaree retirement village to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversaries.
Margaret and Peter met at the parish church in High Wycombe, UK, when they were both 17.
Margaret proposed to Peter and they were married on 16 August, 1938, The pair say the secret to a successful marriage is “a give and take partnership”.
They arrived in Australia 26 years ago, moving north from Melbourne a decade ago.
High school friends Bill and Cilla were married on 3 May, 1938 in Portland, Victoria after Bill proposed on St Kilda beach.
Bill was a policeman and Cilla a nurse. Later, they were caretakers at Bolton Clarke Bongaree for five years before moving into the village as residents in 1999.
They say their secret to a successful marriage is being mates and a kiss before bed.
Mike and Alice tied the knot in Fulham, London, on July 19, 1938. They met in a youth club when they were teenagers, but didn’t marry for seven years.
Even when Mike did propose, Alice didn’t give an immediate reply.
The secret to a successful marriage is being mates and a kiss before bed.
- Bill and Cilla Hassall
Mike was discharged from the Army at age 20 and they arrived in Australia in 2002 after eight years in New Zealand.
They have been at Bongaree for 13 years and say the secret to a happy marriage is tolerance – “the devil you know is the devil you keep”.
Bill and Lil were introduced by a mutual friend in Acton, London when they were both 17. They married a year later.
Bill spent 25 years in the Army after entering at 15. The couple arrived in Australia 40 years ago and spent 10 years in South Australia. They say the secret to a happy marriage is the words “yes dear”.
The joint celebration for the newly-christened “diamond crowd” was supported by the village’s social club.