Lew and Doreen Day with a picture of Queen Camilla and King Charles, who will soon be sending a letter to Lew for his 100th birthday. Photo / Paul Taylor
Lew and Doreen Day with a picture of Queen Camilla and King Charles, who will soon be sending a letter to Lew for his 100th birthday. Photo / Paul Taylor
Doreen Day speaks with pride sitting alongside her husband Lew as she fondly remembers some of the highlights of their incredibly long married life together.
It would be difficult to find a more high-flying couple than Lew, 99, and Doreen, 93, who are both qualified pilots and celebrated their 76th wedding anniversary this week.
Lew, turning 100 on July 17, was living in Napier when he enlisted in the RNZAF in 1942 and flew Sunderland flying boat patrol bombers during WWII.
They met not long after his return to New Zealand, while Lew’s brother was dating Doreen’s sister, and the new couple dated for a few months before marrying.
“I had to move quickly, otherwise she would have said no,” Lew said.
The pair were married in Pukekohe on May 24, 1947. Their ‘honeymoon’ was a seven-week trip on a boat transporting frozen goods in stormy weather, to move to the UK.
Lew took a commission in the RAF with whom he flew in the Malayan Emergency and the Korean War. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for gallantry.
While Lew flew for the RAF, Doreen raised their three sons in the UK and Singapore before they eventually moved back to Aotearoa.
Their son Brian joked that the secret to the longevity of his parents’ marriage was the time they spent apart while Lew worked as a pilot. Doreen said the reality was they simply had a “fabulous life” together.
A young Lew and Doreen Day, who were married in Pukekohe on May 24, 1947. Photo / Day Family
She describes the moment when Lew was awarded a decoration from Queen Elizabeth II and the Queen asked him what his other ribbons were for.
“The lady next to me said, ‘Who is that? Who is she talking to?’ and I said, ‘My husband’,” Doreen laughed.
Lew was an instructor at the Central Flying School at Cranwell, UK, before they returned to New Zealand in 1962 where he worked as a flight instructor, then a corporate pilot and went on to fly air ambulances.
Dorren said Lew taught Laura Margaret Grenfell, the wife of Sir Bernard Fergusson, who was New Zealand’s governor-general at the time, how to pilot an aircraft.
“That was marvellous. We were invited to their place for garden parties and they would send a car for us,” she said.
Doreen obtained her own pilot’s licence when they resided in Gore. Photo / Day Family
Doreen got her own pilot’s licence when they lived in Gore. She said the pair would travel together when Lew went to aerodromes across the country.
Lew said he and Doreen even flew a job together delivering an aircraft to Fiji for the Fijian Minister of Finance at the time, Charles Stinson.
“It was a few days before Christmas and I thought I would have to rush there and get back in time but they said, ‘No no, you can stay over there.’ Doreen was qualified as a pilot and therefore quite entitled to sit there and be the second pilot of the aeroplane,” Lew said.
The couple moved to Hawke’s Bay last year to be closer to their family. Photo / Day Family
During their travels, the couple photographed the space shuttle Challenger disaster from their hotel in the US, with Lew describing how staff at the photo shop didn’t believe it when he printed out his pictures. It was before the story had hit the news.
