By GEORGIA WESTGARTH
JAMES Barry hopes his wife Olivia will be home to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary because “he can’t drink two pints of champagne on his own”.
Best friends of 60 years, the couple has called Doveton home for the past 53 years and wouldn’t know what to do without the other.
James said the years had flown by and it’s all quite fascinating.
“It’s intriguing because you don’t think you’re going to hang around this long, but she’s my best friend, she’s always telling me what to do, but I’d be lost without her,” he said.
Meeting through Olivia’s brother Brian, James said he didn’t think he had a chance with Olivia, but he gave it a go anyway.
“I thought I’d get knocked back and she said yes, I was so surprised,” he said.
“I took her to the pictures for our first date, it was the civic theatre in Ashburton.”
Sharing a love for motorcycles with Olivia’s brother Brian, James said that was the one thing Olivia never approved of.
“She had a ride on the motorbike a few times but she didn’t think they were safe,” James said.
Called up as a National Serviceman, James had to leave his new love for the Puckapunyal Army Base – where he was surprised by Olivia when she came up to base to drop her brother off.
“I said to her how did you know it was me with all these men dressed the same,” James explained.
James was aged 18 when he met English born Olivia, who was 19, and it took just two years for him to pop the question – but not without a bump in the road.
“Olivia’s mother said to me ‘would you like to get married’ and I thought she was proposing to me,” James said.
However the misunderstanding was soon cleared up when James realised she was asking him to propose to her daughter.
So that he did with the tap of her shoulder.
“I didn’t get down on one knee, I just held her shoulder and said will you marry me, and she said yes.”
Now with two children, Jean and Colin, and five grandsons, James and Olivia both in their eighties still travel, zumba dance and are what they call happily married.
“We just get on together,” James said.
With no plans made for their anniversary James said he hoped Olivia would be around to hear the cheers to their long, joy-filled marriage of 60 years, on Tuesday 27 October.
