8. A forever kind of love

When Bing Crosby sang: When I fall in love, it will be forever…he could have been singing about my parents. For theirs’ was certainly a forever kind of love, lasting over 70 years.

It all started in 1951 when they were both 16 years old. It was the 8th of September, and after a tough football match which included losing the game and being injured, a friend talked a reluctant dad into attending the local church dance in East Malvern. Mum had gone to the same dance with her best friend, Wendy. They partnered for Four Corners, a popular elimination-style dance where participants move to different corners of the room, and a playing card is drawn to determine which corners are eliminated. The last couple standing wins, and as happens, this couple was my parents.

Dad courted mum for many years, with local dances almost every Saturday night. If the event was at St Kilda Town Hall, they faced a choice: the last tram home or the last dance. They always picked the latter. They also started going to the cinemas on Wednesday nights – dad would cycle down to the Waverley cinemas and buy the same seats – E 8 and 9 - every week. And when he was working overtime, dad would ride quite a distance from Huntingdale to Caulfield Station during his tea break and meet mum off the train so that they could walk home together.

When dad was 19 and doing National Service at Puckapunyal, he would catch the train home on weekends to see mum. One weekend, when he and a mate were on duty, he even went AWOL (absent without leave) as he couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing his “darling Dottie”. It was all very romantic.

In 1956, the year Mum turned 21, they got engaged. Later that same year, on the 8th of September—their anniversary of meeting—they married in the Ewing Memorial Church, the very place where their story had begun.

A few years later they moved into their first home in Clayton, then, in 1959 I was born and in 1961, Janine came along. From the moment his own children were born, they became the apples of dad’s eyes. Mum was known to complain that, when he got home from work he would greet the kids before he even greeted her, but we always knew that mum came first!

Life wasn’t always easy for mum and dad. A disastrous business decision in the early 1960s saw dad working three jobs in order to make ends meet. Once the two of us were well settled in school, mum went back to part time work, something unheard of amongst most of their friends and family, but they wanted to get back on their feet and that was the only way. As we grew older and more independent mum could do more work (childcare was not available in those days) and contribute more to the family economy. The move to Sydney in the early 1980s also caused some pain, both in leaving extended family behind and in paying much more for housing. But they worked together and got back on their feet.

My parents made every important decision together and would always talk everything through. While this worked well for the family in big decisions like moving house or changing jobs, it made life difficult for me and my sister when we tried to get away with anything! Every time we asked to go somewhere, they would talk about it together before saying yes or no. We could never “play them off” against each other and it was always discussed and decided by them both. They were an unshakeable team.

To my sister and me, our parents’ bond set the standard for marriage. We grew up believing that all relationships were built on the same unwavering love and devotion that they shared. Naturally, we expected to find that same kind of connection in our own lives. Even our children assumed love would always look like theirs—effortless, enduring, filled with quiet understanding.

But as we got older, we began to see the truth. Observing our friends’ parents, navigating our own relationships, we realized that what our mum and dad had was rare. Exceptional. The kind of love that many hope for but few find. Over the years, countless friends and relatives have told Mum just how unique their marriage was—often with admiration, sometimes with envy.

Sport was a big part of my parents’ lives. They played tennis together when they were younger and took up golf as we grew up. They supported my sister and me in our athletics careers and, of course, they went to the footy together every time Carlton (dad’s team) played Richmond (mum’s) but that did not always end well! When we moved to Sydney and they had to develop a new social circle, they joined Rotary and later Probus, volunteering for many different charities with Rotary and enjoying many trips away with Probus. Golf eventually became too hard for them but they still enjoyed a very active social life.

Dad had always travelled for work and as my sister and I grew more independent mum started accompanying him on trips overseas when she could. When dad finally retired in 2000, travel became a new passion they could share and they enjoyed visiting new foreign lands and remote places in Australia. Highlights included tours to China and Egypt and light plane excursions visiting the Australian outback. They also purchased a small apartment at Nelson Bay and would often spend time there, enjoying the beach, playing golf and catching up with friends. Our families also enjoyed many holidays there and were very grateful for their generosity.

As mum and dad reached their mid seventies, and began to experience more health challenges, they made the momentous decision to move into a retirement village. Wanting to be sure of their decision, they asked my sister and me, and our husbands, of our opinion. They wanted to be certain. Living Choice at Glenhaven is a beautiful, resort style village and mum and dad enjoyed many happy years as part of the community. They did everything together, from Happy Hours to social outings, committee work and manning the information desk.

When dad’s health deteriorated and he was forced to move to a nursing home, mum went every day to sit with him, talking and reminiscing about their lives and bringing him photo albums and other books to remind them of happier times. The Covid pandemic, forcing people to be apart, was a particular struggle for them, but mum would ring dad as much as possible and try to talk to him and keep him happy. Theirs was a real bond.

When dad passed away in June 2023, they had been together for over 70 years, married for almost 67. Theirs was a forever kind of love, their marriage really was “til death do us part”. At his funeral, mum chose, among other songs, Elvis Presley’s The wonder of you but any love song from the 1950s could have been, and probably was, theirs.