Our People

The simple life suits them fine

• Howick and Pakuranga Times

AFTER a year of letter-writing, two mammoth train rides and a trip across the stormy Cook Strait, Ray Donaldson finally got his girl.

LIFELONG LOVE: Ray and Jean Donaldson celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary last week. Times photo Bruce Nicholson.

Seventy years ago, the now sprightly 95-year-old, travelled from Gore to Auckland to marry his sweetheart in the Onehunga Presbyterian Church.  Mr Donaldson had been working in Gore for the National Bank.

Last week Ray and Jean Donaldson celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary, nestled in a small unit at the Pakuranga Park Village rest home.

 “It is a long time and yet it’s very vivid,” says Mrs Donaldson, 94. “We lived a very normal life. Neither of us smoked and we had little drink,” agrees her husband. “It suited us fine and we never had any troubles.”

Reflecting on the many decades they’ve spent together, the couple say they lived a “modest” life.

While they attended the same Sunday School and Bible class in Whangarei, weekly dances at a church hall were the catalyst for their romance.

“It was just friendship and then it developed into courtship and into marriage,” says Mr Donaldson. “It was taken for granted that we’d get married,” says his wife, with a loving glance.

After zooming around the far North in an Austin 7 on their honeymoon, the couple settled into married life, with Mrs Donaldson giving up her position as a shorthand typist for the Labour Department.

During World War Two Mr Donaldson was a lieutenant in the New Zealand home-guard and by the end of the war, the couple had two children.

After 43 years working at the National Bank – with just a half-day’s sick leave to his record – Mr Donaldson retired.

Messages of congratulations on their anniversary from the Queen and Governor-General are proudly displayed in the couple’s lounge.

The Donaldsons recently joined friends and family at a get-together in Cornwall Park, at the spot where they held their wedding reception.

Self-confessed home bodies, the couple have few hobbies outside the home and spend much of their time together.

“We never scrapped,” says Mr Donaldson. “We lived rather harmoniously and got along nicely.”