Australia’s enduring and surprising love stories

Sometimes, love lasts a lifetime. Sometimes, love happens when you least expect it. One thing is for sure: love can happen at any age.

Aveo A4 hero

Sometimes, love lasts a lifetime. Sometimes, love happens when you least expect it. One thing is for sure: love can happen at any age.

New South Wales couple Audrey and Jim Murray recently celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary. The couple met in the late 1940s, when Jim was waiting to be discharged from the Royal Australian Air Force after WWII.

“He was a very cheeky young man at that time. When we were introduced, I said to my friend who introduced me, I thought he was too full of himself,” says Audrey, as they both smile.

Their love blossomed when they were both invited to another party and found themselves face-to-face.

“We played this party game where all the girls were in one room, and the boys were in a different room, and we were all given a piece of string. [You] had to nibble on it around the corner into the other room, and there was somebody on the other end of this piece of string. That’s really how we met with a bang,” says Audrey.

At the time, she was 16 and Jim was 19. They wanted to get married, but Audrey says her mother “would have had a fit”. By the time they actually tied the knot, she was 20.

These days, the couple enjoys their later years at a retirement community in Murwillumbah and have three children, seven grown grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren.

“Nobody’s more surprised than us,” she says.

“Our children were all so busy travelling around that we didn’t think we were ever going to have any grandchildren, but suddenly, everything happened at once. We love them all, and we love it when they come to see us.”

The best piece of advice she was given, she says, came from her mother.

“Never go to bed without making up, if you’ve had an argument. I think that was very good advice. Yeah, remember you’re a pair,” she says.

Love when you least expect it

Of course, love can happen to anyone, at any age. Jo Lee, lifestyle coordinator at Aveo Freedom Aged Care Tanah Merah in Queensland says one of her proudest moments came from helping sparks fly between two residents at the community.

The gentleman, who doesn’t speak very well and struggles with mobility issues, wanted to take his girlfriend on a date. One day, he came to Jo as he didn’t know what to do and was seeking her advice. Valentine’s Day was coming up, so she offered to help him put together a special dinner for his belle.

“He said, ‘Well I can’t cook’, he goes, ‘I can’t talk’. I said, ‘That’s fine, all we have to do is hold your hand, and just every now and then just tell her how much you love her’”, she says.

“So we did flowers, we did chocolates, we did wine, we cooked their favourite meal which was just, what was it? Schnitzel with mashed potatoes and gravy and he wanted all these vegetables. So I had it all set up for them, a very romantic dinner, just for two in the unit. That was my proudest, I thought that was great.”

Surprising senior romances

John Davis and Judy Wrigley met at a retirement community on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.

“I used to live down at Castaways Beach, which is only a few kilometres to the east, here on the coast. We were looking for retirement villages, and at the time Aveo [was] building [its] new Peregian Springs village, and I met Judy at the bar one night and we seemed to click it off, didn’t we?” says John.

“We did, yes,” says Judy.

“I lost my husband at quite an early age, and I couldn’t settle. I was buying and selling and moving around and I thought, no I can’t keep doing this … I’ve found it’s been marvellous for me, and of course I met John, so that makes it even nicer.”

The couple is very social and enjoys travelling together on holidays. The fact that cleaning, washing and cooking are done for them means they can spend more time doing things they enjoy like gardening, exercising and enjoying happy hour drinks.

The only advice they have for other people considering moving into a retirement community is to do it sooner rather than later.

“Being here, taking exercise, not having to do that tremendous amount of work around the house, I think my health’s improved out of sight,” says John.

“I would say don’t leave it too long,” says Judy.

“It’s a more community-minded living style, and I think it does take a little while for some people who are older, who move in, to adjust to it, so don’t leave it too long.

Originally published as Australia’s enduring and surprising love stories