Looking out from the very proper formality of their black and white wedding photo, Mona Fisher and John Hewlett had their whole future ahead of them.
The stiff poses, de rigueur for the day, were complemented by her long white satin gloves and his more discreet grey ones held in his hand, the quintessential Australian memory from those first few austere years after World War II.
However, what they might not have guessed was theirs would be, theirs still is, a love story now 73 years in the making.
And counting.
He came from Melbourne, she from Bendigo, and Bamawm is where they would eventually cross paths as young teenagers, mixing in the same circles which were, in the 1940s and ’50s, pretty big circles, with plenty of farms, busy local towns and the birth of the Baby Boomers.
John’s dad arrived from Sheffield in the UK in 1911 and started hand clearing a farm at Bamawm, initially a small enterprise, milking just 15 cows and the house having no power until after the war. Pioneering stuff.
And growing up between the wars, Mona still has her own childhood memories, including travelling by horse and gig from Goornong along a bush track, to deliver butter, with the horses being tethered near Abbotts, at the current site of Provincial Home Living. She was also well known as a skilled horsewoman, and successfully competed in many local events.
Mona’s family left a mixed farm near Goornong, outside Bendigo, in 1938 to go into dairying (and assorted other livestock) at Bamawm where, as an only child, “Mum pushed me to join local groups and things to meet others my age”.
The couple knew each other “from around” and turned up at the same events — and both went to Echuca for secondary schooling (different schools but on the same school bus).
John was the middle child of three, with older sister Helen and baby sister Ruth, and the family, not surprisingly, were active community members, including in the local Anglican church (his grandfather back in England was an Anglican priest).
Details about their early individual love interests are scant, just a little flicker of a smile crossing their lips as they move the story forward.
But Mona makes it crystal clear there was a commitment John would need to make “if we were going to be serious”.
He would have to take up golf. It was a non-negotiable.
At which they both laugh, with John laughing last. “Yes, I did take it up, but when the children started arriving — Elaine, John and Jennifer — her golf was put on the back burner but I kept playing,” he says.
Before adding, with pride, “she would also go on to win the Division 4, 3 and 2 croquet championships and be a long-term captain of the club”.
Long term goes hand-in-hand with the Hewletts.
Take the organ.
St Mary’s at Lockington needed someone to take the seat, so Mona put up her hand — and stayed there for 50 years.
She would also help out at churches around the district (“including Mologa, where I shared the space with a possum family, which had set up home behind the church wall”) although in all those years with St Mary’s she would only play for one wedding and one funeral. The rest of the time was church on Sundays.
Between 50 years with the organ, 40 of golf (and a life membership) and then croquet as a player and an umpire (via a short flirtation with bowls) for another 40 years, the farm, three children, travel, eight grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren (and counting) no-one would begrudge Mona a bit of time to herself.
Just as John spent his time filled with farming and a raft of community and industry roles, starting early with the children at Lockington Consolidated School as a school council member, and in keeping with his ecclesiastical antecedents, the church, where he was a lay preacher and synod representative of the Milloo Parish, and deacon at St Paul’s in Bendigo.
He would also make his mark in industry, from the Victorian Dairyfarmers to the Herd Test Association, and is still held in the highest regard for his 16 years on the board at Murray Goulburn Co-op — including 12 highly successful years as chairman.
The couple joined Rich River Golf Club early in its formation and John would go on to join its board for 12 years, including seven as president (and a life membership).
He was also a charter member of the Lockington Lions Club and is today a life member of Echuca Lions.
In 2002 his working life and career were crowned with an OAM in recognition of his contribution to the community, especially the dairy industry.
At Mona’s behest, John stuck with golf for more than 60 years, squeezing in a bit of lawn bowls along the way, but is now purely a spectator.
In 2006 the couple finally retired (from most things) but have continued their close association with Rich River and Christ Church, Echuca — and took up travel with a bit of a passion, although John’s time with Murray Goulburn, in particular, involved quite a bit of overseas work.
Favourite destinations include Scandinavia and Japan, and, these days, they are just as happy with many, many winters on the Gold Coast, maybe trying a bit of golf, and more recently croquet and lawn bowls. It’s planes these days, but they drove there for the first time way back in 1956.
Ask the Hewletts how you get through 73 years of marriage and they both look a little nonplussed.
Like all couples they have had their ups and downs, successes and failures, happiness and heartache.
But mostly, they say almost together, it has always seemed as though it was meant to be.
They’re even a little reluctant to talk about themselves. Their family had planned a bumper program to celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary — until COVID-19 struck.
So now the kids, grandkids and great grandies are back with plan B and a 73rd anniversary is set for, of all places, Rich River Golf Club on May 6.
A remarkable milestone that began with that formal photograph after their marriage at St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral in Bendigo and a wedding breakfast at Favaloro’s. Before leaping aboard the train to Melbourne and plane to Hobart for their Tasmanian honeymoon and then returning to their dairy farm close to Lockington.
They both recall their first ‘official’ outing as a couple, the 1948 Military Ball in the Rochester Shire Hall.
“It attracted a huge crowd,” they say.
“So many people they had to do the supper across three sittings at the nearby Strand Theatre — and they even had to take out all the seating to accommodate the guests.
“That’s how many people lived in the region back then, it was so special, you won’t see the like of that function anymore.”
You won’t see too many couples celebrating their 73rd wedding anniversary either — that’s pretty special, too.