Iris and Fred Ralph. Photo / Laurilee McMichael
Compromise is the key to sticking together - just ask Fred and Iris Ralph. The couple will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary next week.
They first met in the school playground. Then she moved away, and he joined the Navy. The next time they met they were 20.
Today Fred and Iris are both 93 and they are due to celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary next Wednesday.
Over that 70 years they've reared two children, emigrated to New Zealand, travelled the world and met the Queen. Fred even has an MBE (Member of the British Empire) to acknowledge his service to Queen and country.
When Fred and Iris were growing up in Maidstone, Kent, they lived only streets away from each other and went to the same primary school.
Their paths diverged when Iris left Maidstone at 11 and Fred at age 15 to join the Navy to see the world.
Fred's ship was torpedoed in September 1940 and while it was being repaired he did a gunnery course near Maidstone, staying at his parents' house every night.
It was then that he again encountered Iris, who had done a short spell in the Army and was now working in the Maidstone post office.
"I was getting some stamps and I suggested she might like to go to a dance that was on that night, and somebody said yes, they would like to go to the dance," Fred recalls, adding that his first impressions were that "I thought she looked a nice bit of stuff".
Iris also thought Fred was "all right" but she had reservations.
"I thought, 'oh dear, I'm not going to get fond of him, he's a sailor'. And my father was an army man, he wasn't very happy either, but still."
The couple began courting before Fred was sent away for two years. On one of his trips home they got engaged, and when he came back in 1943 the pair were married.
Because of the war, Iris resigned herself to not having a proper wedding dress. She had already bought a short dress that she could use again, but when she told Fred's aunt, a Court dressmaker, she wouldn't hear of it.
"She said, 'you're not marrying my nephew in that, you'll be married in a white dress'."
With a little bending of the rules, Iris got a beautiful long white wedding dress.
The day after their wedding, Fred was back at work. He was sent to Asia for the Japanese surrender and returned to England mid-1946.
After their children Lynda and Geoffrey were born, Fred, who was by now a specialist gunner, stayed ashore more often and in 1955 he was offered the chance to transfer to the New Zealand Navy, which was then trying to build up its officer cadre.
The family settled in Takapuna, where Fred worked his way up the ranks to become the Navy's director of gunnery.
For many years one of his roles was to organise the Government's annual celebrations at Waitangi and it was through this, and his naval role, that he and Iris were regularly invited to Government House in Auckland, where they also met the Queen several times.
After Fred retired they moved to Napier, and then last year to Taupo.
While it hasn't been an easy life - Iris says it was sometimes hard being on her own with the children when Fred was at sea - they say compromise is the key to sticking together.
It's worked for them - although Iris jokes that they might be lucky to make it to September 18. "I might throw him out next week," she says.
They plan a celebration in Taupo next week with their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.