Bundaberg lovebirds celebrate 70th wedding anniversary

Athol and Shirley Bartlett were engaged just three weeks after they first met and this week the local couple is celebrating their 70^th wedding anniversary.

The Bartletts marked their special week with plenty of phone calls and messages, a planned dinner with family over the coming weekend and a visit from Bundaberg Mayor, Helen Blackburn.

Shirley first met Athol in his home country of New Zealand after she moved there from the United Kingdom as a teenager.

“I went to New Zealand when I was 17 under the child migration scheme, which was for children of soldiers… who were orphans or who felt that they would like to better their lives,” Shirley said.

“I wrote and I was accepted and went out with 17 [others] to New Zealand, we were spread all over.

“I met Athol when I was 19, I met him at church and three weeks later we were engaged, 11 months later we were married on Easter Saturday and our eldest daughter was born three and a half years later.”

Athol and Shirley went on to have four children, with their two daughters both living locally in Coral Cove and Bucca.

“We have sixteen grandchildren, eight of each, and 26 great grandchildren, 13 of each, spread all over from Perth to Mareeba, the Gold Coast, everywhere!” Shirley said.

The couple spent a lot of their married life in Brisbane where they ran a cleaning business together for over 20 years.

“We went [to Brisbane] in ’78 from New Zealand for a year and stayed,” Shirley laughed.

“When we came [to Bundaberg], we’d only just retired in our eighties.

“We decided we’d come here and we settled.

“We’re very happy here and we’ve made a lot of friends.”

Shirley said she believed the secret to their happy marriage was that they had always been best friends.

“One thing my father taught me was never go to bed in anger,” she said.

“We always discuss things. I’m probably a bit louder than he is, a bit more outgoing, he’s always been the quieter one.

“I just suppose we consider each other. And a good family, making sure they were happy. Just having a happy family life, I think.

“We’ve always been there for each other.”

This article first appeared in BundabergNow.