“THEY used to call me Blondie,” says Elaine Riddock, remembering how she met her husband Les at the ANA rock ‘n’ roll dance in View Street.
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Engaged on April 3, 1964, the Bendigo couple married on November 14 that year.
This week, they celebrate their golden wedding anniversary, 50 years since the day they walked down the aisle at St Paul’s Church in Myers Street.
“It was a nice day, and they all came,” says Elaine, who worked back then as a machinist at the John Brown knitting mills.
Les, who had come to work as a grocer at Fred Randall’s in McIvor Road, clapped eyes on Blondie and knew she was the one.
“We had the reception at the VRI (Victorian Railways Institute) in Mitchell Street, and the wedding breakfast at Robin Café,” says Les.
“I remember it cost 13/6d a head – imagine getting a three-course meal for $1.35 these days!”
Their honeymoon was a car trip to Adelaide, where they lashed out on a dinner at the Tollgate Motel – they knew it was posh because a jug of orange juice cost a whopping 12/6d.
Their children Tracey and Shane head to Bendigo with their families this weekend for a celebration of the milestone, and Les and Elaine are thrilled to have received congratulatory letters from the Prime Minister, the Governor-General and the Victorian Premier.
They have never wanted to leave the city they made their home as a young couple. “We’d miss our friends,” says Les.
Ups and downs aplenty through their wonderful marriage, and they agree that anyone who says couples don’t argue can’t be getting it right.
“We’ve had our disagreements, of course, but we’ve never gone to bed without a kiss to make up,” Les says.
In 2001, at the invitation of the minister at their Christian Life Centre church, they renewed their marriage vows.