Jim, then aged 29, lived in Feilding but he had a mate who mended grocery scales. One Saturday, Jim was in Wanganui and went with him to a job at the dairy opposite Aramoho Park.
"It was the 4th of March, 1950, and it was like a summer's day," says Jim. He had helped with the heavy lifting and was waiting outside in the van.
"It got too hot so I went over to the park. Then I saw Merle." She was Merle Punch, in those days. She was 21.
"We got talking," she says. "He asked me where I worked." That was the Labour Dept in Victoria Ave.
Jim asked Merle to the pictures, she suggested they meet at the Regent Theatre.
"I wasn't going to let him pick me up," she says. Merle biked to the theatre from Halswell St, where she and her sister Rona owned a house.
While Merle was playing it cool, Jim had other ideas.
"I fell in love with her straight away," he says.
Their courtship lasted two years. Merle was confirmed into the Catholic Church before they were married. They were wed at St Mary's Church in Victoria Ave on Saturday morning, July 19, 1952. The reception was at the Savage Club, and in the afternoon they went to the rugby.
"It was Manawatu vs Wanganui, and Wanganui won," says Jim. For their honeymoon, they hired a Ford Prefect from Laurie Edmonds' garage.
Jim worked for the Post Office, a job that took him and his family around the country. It was busy and varied and included sending telegrams by morse code, administering the Savings Bank, family benefits, old age pensions, State Advances rents, rehab loans and more.
They started their married life in Polson St, Castlecliff.
"On their 50th wedding anniversary we revisited all the houses they'd lived in in their married life, and Polson St was the only one we couldn't locate," daughter Carmel says.
Jim was relocated to Motu, near Gisborne, as postmaster.
"No electricity," says Merle. "It didn't worry me, I was used to it. I was brought up in Pipiriki and we didn't have electricity there, either."
Jim's job included issuing certificates for births, deaths and marriages. Their daughter Colleen was born there so Jim issued the relevant documentation.
Carmel was born in Feilding, the next location, to which they returned after a stint in Levin. The Hurdles had five children in all.
"We bought our own house in Feilding," says Jim. They ended up owning and running a shop. It was a general store with dry goods in sacks, measured and weighed for the customer. With fowl runs being popular they sold a lot of wheat.
One of Jim's customers was a dentist.
"Church of England used to have a fete day," says Jim, "and he got on the committee." The dentist objected to a sweet stall, despite learning it was one of their best sellers. He asked how much it made last year, was given a figure, for which he wrote out a cheque. There was no sweet stall that year.
The Hurdles also lived in Wellington, Hastings and Palmerston North. When Jim retired at 63 he was national secretary for the Society of St Vincent de Paul. They retired to Palmerston North then came to Whanganui just a couple of years ago.
Jim served in World War II as a sailor with the Navy, shipping out with the 5th Reinforcements in early April, 1941. He returned on Anzac Day, 1943, suffering from tuberculosis.
"I finished up in hospital, but they got me right." Living with one lung hasn't hindered Jim. He turns 97 this year.
He agrees with Merle that love is the main ingredient that kept them together.
"And Christian faith," he adds.