Sharing and caring key for 60 years

There will no problem for Mervyn (83) and Noeline (80) Robinson when it comes to sharing today's Otago Daily Times to read about their diamond wedding anniversary - and check the photograph.

Sharing is one of the keys to a successful marriage, they both agreed, and for all of their 60 years married they have been subscribers to the Otago Daily Times.

They also listed two other ingredients for marriage success - working together and taking care of each other.

The couple first met in Balclutha in 1949 at the Saturday night dances. He was working in a garage and she, then Noeline South, was training to be a nurse.

While they had some dances together, the first "official date" was in 1950, when Mr Robinson took Noeline to the St Patrick's Ball in Milton, one of the highlight of the area's social calendar.

Mr Robinson was a popular man with the nurses at Balclutha Hospital because he had a car, a small Ford 10.

When he picked up Mrs Robinson from the nurses' home, other nurses would pile in to catch a ride into town.

"They were virtually hanging out the windows," he said. "I could only go one way - down the hill. There was no way my car would have made it back up the hill with that many passengers."

They got engaged in the same year, on July 23, Mrs South's birthday, and were married at St John's Church in Winchester, South Canterbury, on February 23, 1952.

In those days, nurses were not allowed to continue to work after getting married, so Mr Robinson continued in the motor trade at Balclutha, then in 1958 they shifted to Papakaio as a married couple on a farm.

They then bought a small 4.4ha property in Richmond Rd, running a poultry farm, then converting to pigs.

In 1992 they retired to Oamaru. The couple have three children and four grand children.