He persisted and after three weeks, she agreed to a cinema outing.
Now, Oamaru couple Burnie (84) and Hilda (85) Coatham are celebrating their blue sapphire wedding anniversary after being married for 65 years and raising six children.
During World War 2, 17-year-old Hilda Womersley was working as a land girl on a farm in the Castleford area of Yorkshire.
Burnie, six months younger, was a truck driver.
"He kept pestering me to go out, but I told him I didn't like the look of him," Mrs Coatham said.
"It took about three weeks of asking her before she agreed," Mr Coatham said.
Despite her initial reluctance, the couple married on August 17, 1946, three years after meeting.
Mr Coatham continued working as a driver then started his own haulage business.
In 1963, the experiences of an uncle who lived in New Zealand persuaded them to make the big shift. When they applied for emigration assistance, they were turned down by the New Zealand Government because they had too many children - six aged between 30 months and 16 years.
So they paid for their own passage, shipping their own furniture and a new car.
They settled at Putaruru, where Mr Coatham worked as a driver, then a fitter and then a safety officer.
They retired to Kinloch, near Taupo, but found it remote, and when daughter and son-in-law Bernice and Roy Vannini bought Oamaru luxury lodge Pen-y-bryn in 1997, Mr and Mrs Coatham helped them move. They liked the town and eventually bought a house in Hull St.
Mr and Mrs Coatham have 14 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
And their recipe for a happy marriage?
"Trust and no arguments," they both said.
"One thing our sons and daughters have all said is they never heard us argue."
