Seven decades after she first walked down the aisle, Joan Kingston couldn’t help but shed a tear when she renewed her vows.
Standing in the same church where she married her husband Jack 70 years ago, five generations of their family were there to witness their emotional celebration of lasting love. Even more remarkably, Joan had the same bridesmaid, Jack’s sister Debbie Fairburn (87), and flower girl, Beverley Exley (73), who was just a toddler at the wedding.
“Don’t cry,” whispered Jack (92), as the minister started the service. But there wasn’t a dry eye in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Auckland when Jack spoke of the joy that Joan had brought him.
“I have loved you and will continue to love you and care for you to the end of my days,” he told Joan (91), who is now confined to a wheelchair and has dementia.
Joan and Jack’s great granddaughter orla (2) was even dressed in the same baby blue frock that Beverley had worn at their wedding. But there was no chance of Joan wearing her original gown. She had altered it and dyed it pink she could wear it to dances.
The couple originally met at a ballroom dance in Dominion Rd in Auckland and at the service, minister Bruce Thompson read out Jack’s memories of that night.
“How we danced, yes, it’s true, until the heel came off your shoe. And how I fixed it that night made in heaven. And then Joan, you’ll remember I drove you home in my Austin Seven.”
Afterwards, Jack told the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly that he had admired Joan from afar for a while.
“She didn’t slouch – she walked tall and straight. I felt she was an ideal person to have as a wife and a mother and she’s proved it.”
Eight months later the couple married and they now count five generations in the family including three daughters, seven grandchildren, 14 great grandchildren and two great, great-grandchildren.
on the day of their wedding Jack had just come down with the measles and looked decidedly flushed.
“People said ‘You can’t back out now! So I turned up and people thought I’d had a few drinks, which I hadn’t.”
Jack says the secret of his long marriage is mutual respect.
“It’s about understanding that you both have feelings, so I always treat her like I’d like to be treated myself. I’ve always kept a sense of humour. If things get difficult, crack a joke and have a chuckle.
“I laugh when I read magazines and see two celebrities getting married and it’s a ‘match made in heaven,’ and then a couple of minutes later you’re reading the same magazine and it’s all over. Not like us.”
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