It is literally the story of a boy who married the girl next door and lived happily ever after.
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Ballarat couple, Walter and Dorothy Lee (formerly Blackam), both now 88, were 20 years old when they married in the Neil Street Methodist Church on 15 July 1950.
Dorothy grew up in Havelock Street and Walter (or Wally as he is known) in MacArthur Street, Ballarat.
“I used to kick the palings off the fence and steal the apples from her yard and Dorothy used to come in and take the eggs from our hen house,” he said.
“We never had relations (were involved) until we were married, not like today,” Walter said. “That was the way it was then.”
He remembers funny snippets of that time, of going to the Tarax Bar in Sturt Street and Dorothy (or Dot), then 14, having a gin squash too many, and of a time when there were trams in Ballarat.
“I used to deliver telegrams for the post office and I’d hang on to the tram on my bike to hitch a ride up the hill,” he said.
Walter trained as a mechanic and joined the airforce in 1948, where he worked for 30 years as an aircraft engine fitter.
He served 18 years at Laverton, working on a range of aircraft engines from Rolls-Royce Merlins to Mustangs, through to the jets.
“I liked working on the jet engines. I worked in the test cells in Old Geelong Road, Hoppers Crossing and we’d work 24 hours testing the engines; the blokes in Altona used to complain about the noise.”
In 1965 the couple moved to the Richmond RAAF base near Sydney.
Walter worked with the 35 Squadron and went from there to Vung Tau, Vietnam, for 12 months while Dorothy lived in the airforce barracks with their three children, Robert, Marilyn and Phillip.
“I loved my job,” Walter said. “You were always learning and there was always something new happening.”
The couple agree several factors have kept their relationship strong.
It was 1949 and it hit me that’s what smoking does and I have never smoked since. It has stuck with me all my life.
- Walter Lee, 88 years
“My view of marriage is that the man is the head, but the wife is the neck, which controls the head,” Walter says.
“It’s not my wisdom, I heard it from a fellow in Africa years ago but it clicked with me. I reckon it’s wise advice.”
“We have things in common, we both love gardening and we always made decisions together.”
Asked about the sensitive issue of money, which often brings relationships undone, Walter said “We’ve always had our own accounts but if one of us needs money, we just ask each other.”
“We make decisions together (about purchases), but if she wants something she gets it,” Walter says, laughing.
“The biggest bonus for us is being non-smokers – financially and health wise,” he says.
“Smoking is the greatest burden. Gee, I have seen a terrible lot of things with smoking, illnesses, passive smoking and secondary problems. He vividly remembers the day he quit smoking.
“I’d been smoking since I was shoe shining for the Yanks when I was about 12 or 14 and I still remember the day I ran out of cigarettes ... I was going through my pockets, panicking. I got the shakes.
“It was 1949 and it hit me that’s what smoking does and I have never smoked since. It has stuck with me all my life.”
The couple moved to live at Tweed Heads later in life but after a visit to visit Walter’s sister, Joyce and her husband, Keith – the Kryal Castle creators – they stayed.
When asked what had changed about the world in their long life, they said, “It’s faster, and you have to be able to step away from time to time.”
“I think the world’s better,” Walter said.
“We used to have ice blocks in an ice chest for refrigeration and my mother used to have to run the washing through the mangle. Technology has made it easier.”
“TV used to be black and white and now it’s perfect. Now you can live in it.” His laughter is irrepressible.
“We’ve had a good life together,” Dorothy said, and Walter agrees.
“We’ve had our ups and downs, but I wouldn’t change anything.”