Good dancer and 'good straight girl' celebrate 65 years of life together

A new great grandchild, Millie, their fourth, arrived on the day.

The Myers Flat couple met at a ball in Borung and married in Fernihurst, where Betty grew up, in 1959.

Ken, who came from Serpentine, about 20 miles away, was 25 and Betty was 20.

Ken's mother played piano at Old Time dances so he had some good moves.

"He was a good dancer," Betty says.

He was also very reliable.

For her part, Betty was "a good, straight girl," according to Ken.

"She knew a lot. She used to work at Hanro [Knitting Mills] in Bendigo.

"I was working with an SEC contractor and I used to come home from Melbourne, pick her up from Bendigo here and we'd go back up to her parents' farm in Fernihurst every Friday night."

After they were married the couple moved to Nangiloc on the Murray up near Mildura for two years, before coming back to Fernihurst to share-farm.

"Then around '67 we went on to my parents place," Betty says. "They retired to Bendigo and we took over the farm."

The pair already had two children at that stage - Trevor, who was four, and Julie, who was two.

"Then we had twins," Betty says.

"We were kept well under the thumb then."

Tragically, one of the twins, Brian, was killed the day before his 18^th birthday.

He had taken a motorbike he was selling out for a run and was hit by a drink driver from Melbourne.

"I was busy icing the twins' cake when they come to say there'd been an accident," Betty says.

Though it has been 40 years since the death, the couple's feelings don't seem to have faded.

"The laws only protect the guilty," Ken says.

"The driver got two and a half years. I think they were out in 18 months" says Betty, muttering what she thinks of them under her breath.

"It was terrible. It's something that lives with you forever really."

Overall the pair enjoyed life on the farm.

"We had some good years and some bad years," Betty says.

In 1983 after they lost Brian, and their eldest son, Trevor, decided to do something else, they left the property.

"We sold it and came to Bendigo," Betty says.

It was a big change, moving from 1000 acres to just one, but the couple settled in to life in Bendigo.

"Ken had a lawn mowing run for a while," Betty says.

They like country music and for 10 years headed to Tamworth every January, then they switched to the country festival in Mildura.

They used to go on caravan holidays to Torquay and took trips with the van to Cairns and to Darwin.

"We've had some pretty good trips," Betty says.

If there has been any formula for the success of their marriage it is just to "give and take," the couple agree.

As far as arguments go, "we have had our moments," says Ken, who turns 90 in July.

"But don't walk away, sort it out.

"That's when a lot of people make mistakes."

As for life highlights, it has been their family.

They have four surviving children - Trevor, Julie, Debbie and Maree - and seven grandchildren and four great grandchildren.