Wedding date: October 3, 1964

Kirkwood Road, Eaglehawk residents, Neil and Joyce McCorriston celebrated their fifty years of marriage with their family on October 3, 2014.

The couple met on a blind date at a barbecue put on by the Coburg Cycling Club in 1961; Joyce was 19 and Neil 21.

Three years later, they decided to get married and held the happy day at the All Saints Church in Preston. Joyce had her sister Carol and Neil’s sister Glenda as bridesmaids while John Hall and Harry Bowers were Neil’s groomsmen.

“As forecast It was a cold, wet, windy day and it sure was.

"We enjoyed our Honeymoon in Hervey Bay though. We got sunburnt up there. After only an hour of the morning sun on our pale Melbourne skins, we burnt very quickly,” Neil adds.

The couple started married life with Neil in his own cartage business and Joyce with a typing job at the Commonwealth Department of Health in the city.

They then became the proud parents of four children.

Escaping the rat race, they headed to Cobden in the western district to raise their four children, Melinda, Annette, Nadine and Aaron.

Joyce says they were some of the happiest times. “We didn’t have to lock the house, or the car, and the children rode their bikes everywhere. 

“We drove around in the station wagon with no child restraints in those days, with the naughtiest child sitting between us on the front seat. When the children got tired they could pop over the back and have a sleep,” Joyce says.

In 1987, the family moved to Bendigo, where Neil has relatives (his mum is a Francis and lived in Golden Square), and he started work at the Bendigo Prison as a Prison Medical Support Officer. 

“My great grandfather and grandfather, along with many aunties and uncles are buried in the Bendigo Cemetery,” Neil adds.