"There was always someone there waiting to take her out."
Tom and Nola both come from farming families. Tom's dad Allan farmed at Aberfeldy.
Nola worked as a florist. Her dad came from Ludgate Hill in London and named his Okoia farm Ludgate Hill.
The two married in February 1946, in the Catholic church that used to stand in Victoria Ave. Tom was 21 at the time.
"When I told Mum I had to get married I was so young that she fainted," Nola said.
But Tom got on well with Nola's mother, and he taught her father, Jock, to drive.
Theirs was a farming life. Tom had a lot of dogs and did shearing, fencing and scrub cutting. For 60 years he leased a farm at Raorikia, on the Whanganui River.
The two had six children - Carol, Lorraine, Helen, Allan, Colleen and Murray.
Nola was a good cook, Tom said, both for the family and for shearers.
"I fleece-oed in the shed and then did the cooking for the shearers," she said.
They had some arguments about electricity. Tom didn't like it when Nola left all the lights in the house on, and Nola said he could be grumpy.
Tom remembers good times at the Aramoho Hotel before New Zealand got serious about enforcing drink-driving laws.
They enjoyed leaving the farm for holidays.
Tom would hire a caravan and take the whole family to Hastings or New Plymouth. The children especially liked holidays in cities, because they came from a farm.
Later in life, the two had holidays in Europe and lived on the Gold Coast of Australia.
At 92 Nola is quite deaf and moved from their Gonville house to Virginia Lodge before 95-year-old Tom. They spend most of their time together.
They have 15 grand and 28 great-grandchildren. One granddaughter is the owner of the Thistle Sweet Shop in Victoria Ave.
Tom has no ambition to reach 100. He says he's had enough. But living at Virginia Lodge is lovely.
"You can't beat it. No worries, good food," he said.
