Matua couple Ron and Dian Smeed married for 61 years

Ron and Dian Smeed's six decade long love story started in a pea factory in Pukekohe.

Dian, now 81, starts to laugh when that unusual sentence is read back to her for confirmation.

"It sounds funny today, doesn't it? That does not sound good."

Mechanic apprentice Ron, now 85, was usually dressed in a boiler suit carrying an oil can around the factory.

Dian was working on the conveyor belt picking deadly nightshade out of thousands of green pea plants.

Sixty-one years of marriage later, sitting in the couple's sunny Matua home, the details come flooding back.

Ron had been giving Dian and some of the other women a ride to and from work. He had his own car.

Dian, who was training to be a teacher, was spending her Christmas holidays working at the factory "around the clock".

"I think Rob had the qualities that I was kind of looking for," she says casually all these years later.

"I wonder what those qualities were," Ron says with a laugh.

"Might have been your bank account."

Ron and Dian Smeed have been married for 61 years today. The story of their proposal, involving an alarm clock, is as Kiwi as you can get. Photo / John Borren

The banter is loving. Everything about the Smeeds is loving.

On the dining room table sits an unfinished jigsaw puzzle they have been working on together. It's only the third one they've ever done.

"I was actually engaged to another girl at that stage," Ron says of the pea factory days.

But that is a story for another time, he quickly adds.

"Best thing that ever happened."

Dian has a story of her own.

"My dad was absolutely disappointed because he reckoned that school teachers went into the country and he had this theory – you married a sheep farmer. When he turned out to be a dairy farmer, well ..."

Dian and Ron were both from Tuakau and that is where they got married in 1957, in a small Presbyterian church just two years after first kicking it off.

Ron was 24 and Dian was 20.

Today is their wedding anniversary.

The couple has had four children – two daughters and two sons – including a foster son and an adopted daughter.

They have lived on dairy farms in Tuakau and Matamata, a lifestyle block in Horsham Downs, and have been in the Western Bay for about 20 years.

Some of that time was spent in Katikati, where they ran a BP service station, and the rest has been in Tauranga.

Dian says: "Is Ron a bit of a romantic? Yes, he is."

The story of their proposal is as Kiwi as you can get.

"I realised at one stage in our courtship, Ron was inviting me to share his alarm clock when he got up to milk. And that was the proposal."

In between the laughter that follows that story, Ron says: "She didn't take much notice of it though."

The Smeeds' sense of humour is in sync and their chemistry and affection, natural and steadfast.

Their favourite dates are to restaurants, the theatre, the cinema, or anywhere with music.

Ron says: "I can honestly say, I don't think we've ever had a really bad moment at all, have we Dian?"

His piece of advice: "You've just got to be able to work together and I think that's about it."

Dian nods, and then adds: "Respect. How you expect to be treated – you dole that out."

Wise words from a couple still truly in love after 61 years.