Auckland man John Somerville and his Gisborne wife Jean Bewley married four years ago after being girlfriend and boyfriend in the 1950s. They feature in an Air NZ video about flying and romance.
A couple who first went out together in the 1950s, rekindled their romance decades later and got married four years ago starred in a recent Air New Zealand Valentine’s Day video. Gisborne Herald journalist Anne-Marie de Bruin spoke with John Somerville, 89, and Jean Bewley, 87.
John Somerville, of Auckland, and Jean Bewley, of Gisborne, have a unique story of a romance that spans more than 70 years.
The couple first met near Dunedin in the 1950s, went their separate ways for decades, reunited in 2021 and were married a year later.
“It was Christmas Eve, roughly 1953,” John recalled of when their eyes first met. “A long time ago. We were both in Macandrew Bay ... it’s a little wee bay on the Otago Peninsula – about seven miles out of Dunedin. We both went to Bible class there."
Life took them on different paths. They married and had families of their own, and it was only by chance that they were reunited so many years later.
John, whose wife of 60 years had passed away several years beforehand, found a number for a Jean Bewley in a library in Auckland.
“I rang and she answered the phone.
“She said: ‘Hello.’ I said: ‘Is that you Jean?’ She said: ‘yes’. I said: ‘Do you ever remember a John back in the day?’ And she said” ‘Oh that’s you John Somerville, isn’t it?’
“She used a couple of stronger words than that ... and for the next hour we were talking about all sorts of things.”
John said Jean had a friend with her at the time of his call.
“I think it might have been the cleaner, I’m not sure. And then after the conversation, Jean just sort of collapsed on the sofa [John remembers her telling him].
“Her friend said: ‘You all right Jean?’ Jean said: ‘Well ‘I think so, that was my first boyfriend.’
“That’s where it started [or in their case restarted],” John said.
“We had a few phone calls after that and I decided it’d be nice if I went down [in February 2021] and the result is what you know.”
The pair were married on February 19, 2022, John told the Gisborne Herald last week.
“And you’ve just reminded me, I have to ring her tonight. I do every night, anyway, because it’s the anniversary of four years ago. We had our wedding, the marriage was in Jean’s church, but the wedding breakfast, if you like to call it, that was at the Bushmere Arms.”
Ring her? Yes. Because John lives in a retirement village in Auckland, while Jean is at Kiri Te Kanawa Retirement Village in Gisborne.
The couple both have families of their own – including great-grandchildren – and staying where they are keeps them close to their respective families.
“I’ll be 90 in September and Jean, she’ll be 88 in August,” John said.
Featuring in the Air New Zealand video was also by chance.
“I was seeing Jean off back to Gisborne one time at the airport in the regional departure lounge. There were no seats [available] to have a cup of coffee, but a lady noticed we were looking around to sit down.
“She beckoned us over and she got a couple of seats from somewhere and we sat with her.
She got talking to Jean and Jean said: “Well that was my husband, but he’s seeing me off to Gisborne.”
The woman asked Jean why she wasn’t going with him.
Jean replied: “Oh he lives in Auckland and I live in Gisborne by arrangement and we commute.”
“She commutes up to me one month and I go down to her the next month,” John explained.
The woman they met just happened to be from the Air New Zealand PR team and loved their story. And that was how they eventually came to star in the 50-second Valentine’s Day video.
John also has a strong connection with the airline industry, having worked in it for 45 years. He started with NAC, which was the national airline before it amalgamated with Air New Zealand in 1978.
He was part of the Air Training Corps, then joined the airline with the intention of being a pilot.
Unfortunately, he failed an eyesight medical, which put paid to that.
NAC offered him a job in administration, which he took, and he went on to work for TEAL (Tasman Empire Airways Ltd) – the former name of Air New Zealand – and later, Japan Airlines.
Jean had a career in embroidery.
“I went to technical college in Dunedin and it was the only thing I was good at, embroidery.
“There was an old teacher that taught us how to do Hardanger embroidery and I just absolutely loved it.”
She ended up teaching at the polytech in Gisborne and her love of Hardanger took her to Norway, where it originated, in the 1990s.
Jean rememebered being front-page news after great interest was shown in her own Hardanger work.
“So here I am on the front page of the Norway newspaper ... a very important film star had died, and he had a tiny wee picture up in the corner and I’ve got a great big picture of me.”
That star was none other than Frank Sinatra, who died in 1998.
Jean said she enjoyed seeing Norwegian women and children wearing Hardanger embroidery on their clothes.
“It was absolutely beautiful and there were so many of them. That was one of the highlights of my life, I think.”
Jean also travelled to Pennsylvania to meet Amish people, who are also well-known for embroidery.
“Amish patchwork ... it was so incredible that they made hundreds and hundreds of beautiful quilts.”
While Jean’s embroidery took her great distances to faraway shores, her and John’s flying is regional these days.
The Air New Zealand video starts by introducing them as “a couple who’ve perfected long-distance love” and ends with the line: “Love really is in the air”.
You can view the video here.
