KEY POINTS:
The last time Ray and Lois Bambery were separated was when death parted them last year. The first time was in 1939, when Ray left to board HMNZS Achilles to fight in World War II.
For six years during the war they wrote to each other, and when
Lois died last year, two months after Ray, their daughter Jennifer found their love letters under their bed.
Those wartime letters are a touching legacy that their children will cherish forever - and they are a remarkable chronicle of how the tumultuous events engulfing the world affected two young lives.
Six years was a long time to be apart, especially as they had met and fallen in love only one year earlier when 17-year-old Ray spotted Lois swimming off Kohimarama beach from his small yacht and asked her if she wanted a tow into shore.
"They were joined at the hip. They found it very hard whenever they were apart," says Jennifer Bambery.
She was cleaning the house after her parents died when she found a box underneath their bed containing the war-time love letters the two had written to each other.
"The letters showed that they were very, very much in love and missing each other terribly," said Jennifer Bambery.
The letters also tell how much the two wanted to get married as soon as they were reunited.
Ray, who had limited time at school, wrote to Lois: "I must learn how to spell one day. Still, never mind darling, some day when we have plenty of time when we are married in the long winter evenings around the fire I am going to get you to teach me to spell so as your school teaching won't be wasted all together."
Lois wrote in reply: "After five years here I am still waiting to get married. Remember how when we were saying goodbye when you first went away and I was going to wait years for you and how I thought we'd have to wait seven years, well two more years, I don't think I'll have to wait that long, do you?"
She also described putting together a glory box for when they were married.
"Well darling, the box is gradually growing ... . I also have a supply of materials for clothes so that will be a saving when we are married."
They ended every letter with "yours forever and ever".
Ray left for war in November of 1939 on the merchant ship Rotorua, which transported naval personnel to HMNZS Achilles in South America.
But the Achilles became involved in the Battle of River Plate in Montevideo, Uruguay, and the Rotorua was diverted to Halifax in Canada.
From there, Ray went by train to Vancouver and was shipped back to New Zealand.
The Achilles returned to Devonport and he served on it until August 1940, when he joined the Monowai.
His luck in missing the Battle of River Plate - in which the Achilles and the British warships Ajax and Exeter fought a running battle with the German pocket battleship Graf Spee - meant Ray never saw action.
Lois, who was only 15 when she met Ray, stayed at Epsom Girls Grammar School until she was 17. During the war years she went to teachers training college.
Life in New Zealand often felt very distant from the war. A keen swimmer, Lois would often swim from Mission Bay to Kohimararma. She also played netball.
Ray's war was not as bad as that of many others. He described his days on the Monowai as being his favourites, sailing around the Pacific to Fiji, Tahiti, Noumea, Fanning Island (Kiribati) and Honolulu.
In April 1943, the Monowai was sent to England, where Ray joined Achilles' sister ship, the Leander, which sailed to Boston for repairs.
It was then sent back to England, where Ray returned to the Achilles, which finally took him home.
Lois was teaching at Orakei Primary School in February 1945 when she saw Ray's ship heading towards the Devonport naval base.
She ran from the classroom and reached the base in what her family calls "record speed".
They married one month later, in March 1945. Lois had made her own dress while Ray was away.
Fellow seaman Murray Wallace, who knew Ray before the war and also served on the Achilles and Leander, says he was a "typical New Zealand bloke, and a well-meant fellow", and that Lois was "just right for him".
"They were pretty well made for each other," he says.
"I used to see Ray driving Lois around on the back of his motorbike. We all knew they were going to get married."
Glyn Harper, director of the Centre of Defence Studies at Massey University, says Lois and Ray's story isn't unique.
"A lot of people kept in contact during the war and got married when it ended.
"Many of these romances lasted, and most marriages survived ...
They just wanted to come back and settle down."
He said the letters were of significant historical value.
"Letters from the war are very important because they all make up pieces of the jigsaw. I would encourage the owners to copy them and put them in a museum."
As well as being remembered by their six children, 11 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren, Ray and Lois will also be remembered by the Kohimarama community.
Says son Robert Bambery:
"They were real community people. It was proved by the funerals. The church was overflowing at both of them, and people were standing in the carpark."
Lois was a school teacher in the eastern suburbs for more than 50 years, including 30 years at Glendowie Primary School. She also taught Sunday school at St Andrew's Church, where both funerals were held, for more than 50 years.
Ray was part of the Selwyn Lodge men's fraternity and the local yacht club.
He was also at every Anzac Day parade, despite in later years having to attend in a wheelchair after one leg was amputated because of skin cancer he got during the war.
They lived on the same property throughout their 63-year marriage.
"I'm happy that they're together again," says granddaughter Parris Bambery.
"Their deaths were a poetic ending to their lives. I think it's quite romantic that they couldn't survive without each other."
Ray was 86 when he died last December from heart failure. Lois followed two months later, from cancer, at the age of 83.
The ending of one of Lois's wartime love letters to Ray also seems a perfect ending to their lives.
"Goodnight old man. Lots of love, and see you soon. I am yours forever and ever."
