Merv and Cynthia Luke from Whangārei celebrate 70 years of marriage today. Photo / Tania Whyte
Merv and Cynthia Luke from Whangārei celebrate 70 years of marriage today. Photo / Tania Whyte
When Merv Luke cast his eye on Cynthia across a Kerikeri hall more than seven decades ago, he immediately wanted the next dance with her.
“I was going to chase after her but my friend stopped me. He said, ‘No you can’t, you have to waltz with the girl you brought’.”
Fortunately, his friend didn’t foil a love story that has stood the test of time as Merv, 92, and Cynthia, 89, celebrate 70 years of wedded bliss on Tuesday.
Merv was working for an agricultural contractor living in the Far North when the then 19-year-old crossed paths with 17-year-old Cynthia.
“We met the old-fashioned way, at a dance of course,” he said. “I’d seen her before that and had my eye on her.”
At the dance, Merv recalled, the girls used to line one side of the hall and the boys the other.
“...And once they announced the dance had started it was a rush to the other side,” he said.
While Merv wasn’t able to nab a waltz straight away, he did end up giving Cynthia a ride back to her Pakaraka home that night and the pair spoke for hours about their lives.
Cynthia was drawn to Merv’s smile and he, simply, to her: “She just looked nice.”
The pair dated for two years before Merv popped the question in 1952 but not without the permission of Cynthia’s father.
“I went to ask him but I had to catch him on the farm as he kept moving from one paddock to another. I had to chase him,” he laughed.
“When I finally caught him he said, ‘you’d better ask her’.”
Their engagement lasted a year during which Cynthia, a talented seamstress, feverishly sewed her own wedding dress of brocaded taffeta.
Around 100 family and friends packed into the Holy Trinity Church in Pakaraka - still standing today - to watch the couple say “I do” on June 20, 1953.
“My mother must’ve invited everybody in the district,” Cynthia said.
Merv and Cynthia Luke on their wedding day 70 years ago.
When it came to the honeymoon, Cynthia said the newlyweds “were quite flash” as they caught a flight from Kaikohe Airport to Whenuapai. Auckland Airport would be waiting in the wings for another three years, to be built.
“That was my first plane ride,” Cynthia said, although a second for Merv, whose idea it was in the first place.
But in the years to come, they would catch many flights to explore the world. From Disneyland in the United States to being in England when Princess Diana died, Europe, Alaska, South Africa, and Australia.
But back in Northland, they called a “very different” Moerewa home for a year before settling in Kāeo where they raised their five children Peter, Sharon, Robin, Michael and Jacqui.
Merv, tired of the long hours away from home, swapped his job for truck driving but even that still had its challenges. Sometimes his work took him as far as Auckland where he would have to catch the ferry as there was not yet the harbour bridge.
“There was no communication in those days,” Merv said. “When I left in the morning she didn’t know what time I would be home. She just had to wait.”
But after the kids left the nest, Merv and Cynthia found themselves, in 1974, following in their footsteps which led to Whangārei. A move they revelled in as their family expanded to include 16 grandchildren - 11 boys and five girls - and close to 30 great-grandchildren.
Cynthia spoke of how her husband is a true romantic, who never misses an opportunity to mark a special occasion or a Valentine’s Day with jewellery for his love.
So what’s the secret to a lifelong love like the Luke’s? Patience and tolerance, they agreed.
