Kaitāia couple celebrate 65 years together

Anne and Ron Rice cutting their 65th wedding anniversary cake.

Ron Rice celebrated his 65th wedding anniversary last week with something of a confession.

All had not gone smoothly in the lead-up to he and his bride Anne exchanging vows in Edinburgh, he said, finally reaching the point where he had been on the verge of asking her if they should go through with it.

They did, and he was obviously very happy that they had.

"I picked one in a million. We picked each other," he said.

Their big day in Edinburgh, June 13, 1953.

"We've had an adventurous life, and have been blessed with two children," he added.

The couple celebrated their milestone on Wednesday, at Switzer Residential Care in Kaitaia, where Anne is a resident, her husband continuing to live in the family home not far away.

Residents, staff, friends, the couple's daughter Susan (Matthews) and her husband were there to congratulate them and wish them well, and to present them with flowers, a card and a cake.

Ron was born and bred in Liverpool, and Anne in Edinburgh, where they were married, both at the age of 23. They made their first home in Scotland, and their son Malcolm was born there, before moving to Nigeria, where Susan made the family complete.

"We got around," Susan said. "I could just as easily been born in Wales or Spain."

The couple loved Nigeria though, and would have stayed there but for civil war, and after five years they returned to Britain briefly before emigrating to New Zealand.

Ron and Anne always made good use of their spare time, Ron becoming a soccer referee and an elder in the Presbyterian Church.

Anne was invited to train to serve as a chaplain at National Women's Hospital, and was also a licensed lay preacher. Upon moving north she established the chaplaincy service at Kaitaia Hospital.

The family lived in Auckland for many years, before retiring and moving to Cable Bay, continuing their church activities, and finally to Kaitaia, where Ron, an accountant by profession, donated many hours to charity groups and clubs as an auditor.

They reaffirmed their wedding vows on their 50th anniversary in 2003, Susan saying God had always been the centre of their lives and marriage.

Susan and her husband Colin farm just north of Kaitaia, while Malcolm and his family are in Palmerston North. Between them they have given their parents seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild, with another on the way.

And what went wrong in Edinburgh all those years ago? It all began quite promisingly, with Ron booking the minister to marry them two months before the big day. With five weeks to go, however,the minister informed them that the church had been double-booked — they would have to pick another one.

Advising guests of the change of venue was no mean feat in those pre-cellphone days, Ron said, but they managed. Then, two weeks out, he reminded the organist, who had forgotten.

In any event, according to the organist, by June 13 the scaffolding that was currently around the exterior of their chosen church would be inside it.

So Anne was walked up the aisle of the church hall, to the accompaniment of a piano.