Alan and Irene Wilson, of Gore, celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary today.
Mrs Wilson (nee Waddell) said they both moved back to Gore and started at Gore Main School in April of their last year of primary school.
‘‘We didn’t take any notice of each other,’’ Mr Wilson said.
They attended Gore High School but it was after they left the secondary school their romance blossomed.
‘‘We really met up at the Mataura dance,’’ Mrs Wilson said.
They married on her 20th birthday.
Rev Ewing Stevens had some good advice when he officiated at their wedding.
‘‘He said when you get married if you ever have an argument together make it up before you go to sleep at night, and I always remembered that,’’ Mrs Wilson said.
‘‘It didn’t always happen,’’ Mr Wilson said.
For the first four years of married life, they did not own a car but did buy a house.
‘‘We had two push bikes and that was that.’’
Mr Wilson was a builder and built their first house in Clyde St.
‘‘He built over 100 houses here in Gore and 22 town houses,’’ Mrs Wilson said.
During their marriage they had moved house 43 times.
‘‘We’re not in the Guinness Book of Records but we should be.’’
Sometimes they would move three times in a year.
Mr Wilson would build a house and if no-one bought it, they would move in.
However, it would not be long before the land agent would call and ask if they would sell the house.
Once, when Mr Wilson was whitebaiting, Mrs Wilson sold the house they were living in.
When he came home she told him the news they would have to shift.
‘‘It was funny.’’
The couple had two sons, eight grandchildren and one great grandchild.
They had made a successful team and had never considered parting.
‘‘We got on well together and we didn’t argue.
‘‘We had our ups and downs,’’ she said.
‘‘Better the devil you know than the one you don’t,’’ he said.
The couple will have a celebration lunch on Saturday.
- By Sandy Eggleston
