Ballarat retirement village residents celebrate 70th wedding anniversaries

The couples, aged from 88 to 96, live at Levande Midlands Terrace and spoke to The Courier to mark Valentine's Day on Tuesday.

George and Lorna Pyke, Jim and Val Waight, John and Margaret Thomas and Ken and Marj Hammond all said it was lovely they lived in the same complex and would be celebrating their platinum anniversaries.

The Pykes, who have a bowling green named after them at Victoria Bowling Club, met 75 years ago - five years before they married on October 17, 1953, at Barkly Street Methodist Church.

"The reason for a long marriage is that Lorna is very compassionate and we can relate very well to each other. We love to do things together," Mr Pyke said.

"We have had a very happy life."

Mrs Pyke recently stopped playing bowls, having been involved with the Victoria Bowling Club for 68 years. When her husband comes home from bowls, he tells Mrs Pyke how much he missed her.

Their love story started when Mrs Pyke was a dance instructor at Leache's dancing school and always chose her future husband to dance with.

The Waights, who married on November 14, 1953, at Pleasant Street Methodist Church, remember travelling to Marysville for their honeymoon.

A family friend, who was a police officer, drove them to Melbourne for their first night as husband and wife. He rang a cow bell out the window down Elizabeth Street to their motel, embarrassing a shy Mrs Waight.

"We have been very lucky over the years. We used to go north when Jim retired for three months," Mrs Waight said.

"We have been very happy. We still go where we can together."

The Thomas' first met at a weekly dance in Keith, South Australia. Mr Thomas said his future wife took an interest in him and it had not stopped since.

They were married on AFL grand final day on September 26, 1953, at the Presbyterian Church in East Malvern.

Mrs Thomas said when she got in the taxi, she asked the driver who had won and he said, 'Collingwood' - the team she barracked for - and found out her new husband supported Geelong, which the Magpies beat in the grand final.

The couple lived in East Malvern, South Australia, Melbourne - where they raised their three children - and retired in Queensland before moving to Ballarat three years ago.

Mrs Thomas still has her limerick lace veil in her cupboard, which belonged to her mother and would be more than 100 years old.

The Hammonds will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary in 2024. They were married during Lent on March 27, 1954, at Liversedge Parish Church in England.

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The vicar refused to marry them because of Lent so they had to get the curate to marry them.

Mrs Hammond said the key to a long and happy marriage was having a few arguments and then laughing, while her husband said they always got over arguments quickly.

"We still love one another as much as we did the day we met. We show affection to one another which is very important," Mrs Hammond said.

Mr Hammond said he knew Mrs Hammond before they started dating. Just out of the army, he had been to the Working men's club to play some billiards and walked out to the back lane and down towards the main road to find Mrs Hammond coming towards him.

She had tonsillitis and could not go dancing so they went to the pictures instead for their first date. They dated for one year before tying the knot.

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