Northland couples at Jane Mander Retirement Village reflect on long-lasting love.
This Valentine’s Day, Jodi Bryant asked long-time couples at Jane Mander Retirement Village in Northland to reflect on how they’ve sustained their relationships throughout the decades.
Robin Bagshaw vividly remembers scaling the fire escape to Yvonne’s room after a night at the Kaikoke pub.
“He’s making it up,” laughs Yvonne, who was the receptionist and lived upstairs at the pub where they met.
“I’m not!” Robin insists. “I used to climb through the window – it was always left open. There was a welcoming party!”
It’s this banter that has carried them through 67 years of unity, marrying at Whangārei’s Anglican Church in 1962 and having two sons, sadly losing one aged 24.
“We had two lovely boys but, unfortunately, we lost our David. Whenever I look at his photo, I get a tear,” says Robin, 85, gazing across the room at a framed photo of a handsome man.
“He is a big softie,” confirms Yvonne, 87.
But he’s also a jokester.
“I was president of the local swimming club in Kaikohe and this lovely lady here was junior, intermediate and senior swimming champion and I asked her if she could come coach our children. We had a club of 50 people and there was only one person who couldn’t swim and that was the president – me!
“I was the rock of the club.” He chuckles, before adding, “That was a pun – it sunk.”
Robin worked in the printing and publishing industry and they lived in Kaikohe, then Wellsford, where they built a home. They have lived at Jane Mander for nine years and have one 18-year-old granddaughter in Wellington.
As well as losing a child, health issues have been their biggest challenge, although Robin attributes Yvonne’s good physical health to her swimming days.
“She is a beautiful swimmer – when she does, there’s hardly a ripple, it’s beautiful to watch.”
“We’ve always got on well,” says Yvonne. “We’ve lived 60-odd years of married bliss. All my girlfriends used to say, ‘How do you do it?’ because they always seemed to be fighting. But he’s kind and generous and he never seems to argue. I can’t ever get an argument out of him and I think I’ve tried!”
“There’s no point in that, it’s a waste of time,” adds Robin. “But thank you, dear, that’s very kind of you.”
When asked if they acknowledge Valentine’s Day, Robin replies, “No, every day is the same to us. I can’t get downtown but, if I could, I’d buy a present for my lovely wife. Then I’d get one for me. And then I’d go to the pub.”
Robin cites “all the abilities” as key ingredients for a long-lasting relationship – “compatibility, stickability and humourability – that’s a new word, I just made it up!”
“It’s important to have a giggle and a laugh. Well, I go out there” – he indicates beyond the door – “and try and stir things up but no one listens. They don’t take the bait!”
When Don Davis and his mate spotted Rosetta at a wedding, they both fancied her and decided to let her choose. Last year, Don and Rosetta celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary.
Don, 94, explains: “We were at a mutual friend’s wedding and, afterwards, we went up to my mate’s place and, after a few drinks, Colin said to me, ‘You see that girl over there?’ I said, ‘Yes’. He said, ‘I’m going to ask her to go out with me tonight’. And I said, ‘Oh, I was thinking the same thing’. So, I said I’d call her over and ask her who she’d like to go out with.
“She said she’ll go with me.”
“I thought I said I’ll take you both,” laughs Rosetta, 92.
There were no hard feelings. In fact, Colin was best man at their wedding two years later. The couple had four children but lost two and now have five grandchildren and one great-grandson. They have lived in Jane Mander for six years.
They have gone through their adversities, losing two children and almost losing a third to meningitis, plus Rosetta’s recent gruelling cancer journey. They believe open communication helps.
“You need to be able to discuss matters without getting out of tune,” says Rosetta. “There may be something that you don’t go along with but it’s better to discuss it and get over it.
“Anybody who says that they go through marriage without any discord, I don’t know how that works. We talk it over, have a cup of coffee or you get out in the garden when you’ve had enough of me,” she says to Don, referring to his pastime of keeping immaculate gardens.
What would be the one thing that annoys them most about each other?
“Don’s hard of hearing and sometimes I talk too much. But we get on really well. You’ve got to have a sense of humour. Accept your personalities and if your personality clicks, well it clicks, doesn’t it? I haven’t kicked you out yet,” she adds to Don.
And what do they love about each other most?
“We just enjoy each other’s company and we like the same things,” answers Don.
“We used to play golf together,” adds Rosetta. “Don was a good golfer and he had me for the putting as I was a good putter. We’d see some couples throwing the golf clubs and really going for it but we never did. We just accept each other as we are.”
The couple still acknowledge Valentine’s Day with Don presenting Rosetta with flowers from his garden and they still sleep in the same bed.
“She can still growl at me, like this morning, for pulling all the blankets off!”
When 18-year-old Isabel spotted 23-year-old Eddie Taylor sitting on the deck of a cruise ship reading, she decided to walk past to get his attention. Several laps later, he still hadn’t looked up so she approached.
“I said, ‘What do I have to do to get you to notice me?!’”
“Did you notice me?” she asks him now 66 years later.
“Well, once I noticed you’d done it a few times, I thought, ‘Hullo, here’s trouble’,” chuckles Eddie, 89.
“He was a very shy country boy,” explains Issie, 84. “I had been going out with another fellow and my parents didn’t approve of him at all – thank goodness I didn’t marry him – so they decided they’d take me for a holiday to Australia and, on the cruise ship coming back, I spotted this good-looking blond reading a western and thought, ‘He’s very nice’, so I walked up and down the deck backwards and forwards.”
“I’d never come across a woman like that,” says Eddie, who was returning from an OE with the boys and was having a quiet read. “Issie was a city girl, and on the farm, it was cows rather than anything else.”
They swapped numbers before they disembarked and a short courtship followed for the Wellington couple. Issie began her nursing training and recalls climbing down the fire escape to go out with Eddie – “It was a very romantic time”.
She continues: “When he took me to introduce me to his family, because he was such a shy boy, one of his sisters just stared at me the whole time with her mouth open because he’d never had a girlfriend!”
They married on Issie’s 19th birthday and had their first of four babies the following year. They now have nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Living mostly in Auckland and Taupō at one point, they sold up and lived in a campervan for nine years, travelling the country – testament to their companionship.
“I think our biggest challenge would have been different interests,” says Eddie. “Because Issie is very much a people’s person, whereas I was an animal’s person.”
“Also, Eddie’s very into sports, whereas I’ve always been into musical theatre and, once the kids got older, we realised we didn’t have many common interests so basically after years and years of him doing his things and me doing my thing, we decided this was a case of if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”
Issie took up and grew a subsequent love for running and biking and soon found herself cycling around New Zealand and then France. Eddie started attending the theatre, although didn’t comment when asked if he’d too grown a love for it.
Can they name anything that annoys them about each other?
Eddie: “I don’t really have any, I’m not surprised by anything.”
Issie: “Don’t you? Well, that’s very sweet. At the moment, Eddie’s taken up whistling and that drives me insane. But that sounds silly. There’s nothing really that’s annoyed me. We talk about everything, we’re never short of words.”
When asked what they love the most they gaze fondly across at each other before Issie replies: “He’s a real gentleman. He was very close to his mum and used to step in and help her. Everyone in the [Jane Mander] village is very fond of Eddie. He’s just a nice person.”
Eddie: “I think we both just enjoy each other’s company. There’s always the odd occasion where you get annoyed but it quickly disappears.”
They cite the key ingredients of a long-lasting relationship as love, sincerity, faith and trust – “If you haven’t got trust, you haven’t got anything”.