By Luke Voogt
Donald and Beryl Breguet still remember the day they got married at the Werribee Methodist Church on 1 March 1958.
“It’s like it happened yesterday,” Donald, 83, mused last Friday from the couple’s Lara home.
“There was a warm north wind,” added his wife, 79.
The pair relived the day as they celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary last Thursday in Geelong – with the very people who helped them tie the knot.
Their whole wedding party, still alive, travelled from as far Swan Hill to help the couple celebrate their diamond anniversary at the Lord Nelson Hotel.
“I think it’s so fabulous, the oldest is 86,” Beryl said. “The flower girl was only two and now she’s 62!
“We laughed a lot because a lot of them didn’t know each other.”
“It was an absolutely wonderful evening,” Donald agreed. “Some hadn’t seen each other since the wedding.”
The couple first met in primary school, but were fated to meet again, Donald explained.
“There was a gap from when I first met her and when we got together,” he said.
“My best friend was Beryl’s cousin so it was inevitable our paths would cross.”
They began going to dances at Lara, Little River and Geelong and Donald kept Beryl company as she worked on her family’s farm.
“She had a hard life – she had to milk the cows, feed the chicks…” he said.
Donald’s car sweetened the deal, according to some ribbing from his friends.
“They used to joke, ’how could you resist a young bloke who had an Austin A40 convertible?’” he said.
The couple drove the car to the Carlton Hotel in Geelong for their wedding night and then up the coast to Adelaide.
“That was our honeymoon car,” Beryl said.
Donald worked at the Werribee water works and took extra jobs to “get ahead”. The couple went on to have four children, three grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
They moved to Clifton Springs in 1989 before shifting to Lara five years ago.
Donald credits their successful marriage to Beryl’s good nature.
“She doesn’t go off the handle,” she said. “In all the years we’ve been married we’ve never had a blue.”
Their advice for young couples was simple. “Never go to bed angry with each other,” Donald said.
