This week, Mr Calder (83) presented his wife Bet (82) with a ring - purchased for the princely sum of $14 from a second-hand shop in Waimate.
The couple, who celebrate their diamond wedding anniversary tomorrow, both grew up in Southland and met when Mr Calder's sister asked him to take his future bride to a ball.
They were engaged just before Mrs Calder's 21st birthday and married at First Church in Invercargill on March 28, 1950.
They borrowed a car and headed off on their honeymoon with a caravan, and spent the first night of married life in the Gore camping ground.
They wondered why they could hear children giggling outside the caravan and then discovered someone had written in lipstick "beware of children - just married" along the side of the caravan.
The couple, who had three sons and a daughter, nine grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren, lived in Invercargill for 23 years before moving to Central Otago, where they lived in Ettrick, Alexandra, Clyde and Cromwell. They retired to Oamaru 22 years ago.
Mr and Mrs Calder agreed the years had passed quickly and that tolerance and "give and take" were important ingredients in a long and happy marriage.
Anyone who said they had never had an argument was either never in love, or else a liar "because you do have arguments", Mrs Calder said.
She admitted she had good-naturedly threatened to "wrap the lux around his neck" earlier in the week, but it was only in jest, she said.
"I'm only the boss when it suits . . . same with him," she said.
