Lois kept wondering what happened to Larry after meeting him.
Four years later, when she was 18 and Larry was 24, they bumped into one another while Lois was walking with her mother to get library books.
“She’d improved her appearance greatly and so we got together,” Larry said.
Two years later, the pair were wed at Dunstall’s in Napier by Reverend Claude Hyde on March 3, 1956.
For their 70th anniversary, the couple fielded phone calls from friends and family around the globe and received mail from Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Minister for Seniors Casey Costello and Napier MP Katie Nimon congratulating them on their long and happy marriage.
But whose well wishes were just the first course of ovations for the couple, when a letter from King Charles and Queen Camilla arrived with felicitations for staying together for so long.
The royal commendation caught the couple by surprise, as they were unaware the King and Queen sent letters for long marriages.
Since they’ve been married, the couple have travelled the world and had three children.
They now have plenty of grandchildren and great-grandchildren scattered around the world.
Larry worked on the Napier wharves until he came home one day in 1987 and decided the family was moving to Ōpōtiki a week later, where Lois would go on to become a champion lawn bowls player at the local club and Larry became the club president.
The family stayed there until 2003, relocating back to Napier where they’ve remained since.
Both have their own secrets to making relationships and marriages last as long as theirs.
“We’ve never fought – that’s because I keep my mouth shut,” Larry said.
“We haven’t changed our feelings. We just live together and muddle around, help one another.
“I do the washing and do a bit of cooking.”
“And we don’t go to bed at night without a kiss and a cuddle each night,” Lois said.
“I’d be lost without him.”
Both said their love is just as strong as it has ever been and their time together had helped them develop telepathic-like abilities.
“I’ll often be looking at her, and I’ll be thinking something and she’ll get up and do it,” Larry said.
“So you do grow together.”
Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in the UK, Germany, and New Zealand.
