They have survived a postwar migration from Yorkshire to Dunedin and 70 years of marriage, despite describing themselves as "opposites".
But Ron and Irene Chapman still enjoy each other’s company after seven decades and two children, a feat they say was made possible by a tolerant attitude.
The couple celebrated their anniversary at daughter Phyll Esplin’s home at the weekend.
They met at the New Inn in Marsden, near Huddersfield, in the United Kingdom, in the mid-1940s, when they were in their early 20s.
"I thought she was nice-looking," Mr Chapman said.
"He was cheating at darts," Mrs Chapman said.
"He stuck it in the bullseye, and said ‘look, I’ve got a bullseye’.
"It was funny."
The couple courted for 11 months and married in 1947.
"We’d been in the forces, and everybody was getting married, you know," Mrs Chapman said.
The couple tied the knot in a registry office in Huddersfield.
"Everything was rationed at the time," Mrs Chapman said.
"You had get permission to have a wedding cake, and there was a lot of form-filling and going to food offices and things like that."
Eleven years later, Mr Chapman, a loom tuner, came to Dunedin for a job at local company Ross and Glendining.
Mr Chapman said there were better prospects in Dunedin in those days.
"There were plenty of tradesmen like me at home; there were very few here.
"I fell in love with it," he said of Dunedin.
"It wasn’t crowded, and I thought the climate was better.
"The New Zealand people were good, friendly, you know."
The family, which by then included daughter Phyll (then 3) and son Dave (10), moved to Frasers Rd, Glenross, where the couple still live.
"Don’t ask me where 70 years have gone, because I don’t know," Mr Chapman said.
Jokes aside, the pair said they still enjoyed each other’s company.
"We’re opposites actually," Mrs Chapman said, both in what they thought and what they decided.
"You have to get over that," Mr Chapman said.
The key to staying together, they said, was tolerance.
