Geoff Helisma
Mick and Fay Quinn and George and Joyce Smith celebrated their 60th wedding anniversaries at the Brushgrove Hotel, one of their favourite pubs, on Thursday February 10 – just the four of them.
Mick and Fay tied the knot on February 10, 1962, at St Mary’s in Grafton; and George and Joyce were married in December 1961 at St Matthews in South Grafton … and they are proud examples of traditional wedding vows; for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us part.
“We’ve had our ups and downs,” says Mick. “A lot of water has gone on under the bridge, I can tell you,” says Fay. “There’ve been good times and bad times – we worked through the bad times and enjoyed the good times, and that is so, so true.
George retorts across the table, “With us it is, I don’t know about you?” Laughter and ironic quips follow.
Their friendships predate their weddings – “We knocked about together before we were all married back in the late 50s, and we still muck about together.” – and tragedies have only made then stronger; both Fay and Joyce are survivors; Fay suffered severe burns and Joyce endured breast cancer 31 years ago.
“Over 30 years ago, Fay was horrifically burnt and spent three and a half months in Concorde Hospital [in Sydney] and just about nearly went over the edge,” says Mick.
“I didn’t want to [be in hospital],” says Fay. “Everyday I prayed that I wouldn’t wake up.”
Strength through adversity is a strong part of each couple’s ethos and subtle humour permeates their banter. “And they all thought he’d leave me because I’m scarred so badly,” says Fay.
“I was amazed at the medical science; the staff at Concord were on a different planet,” says Mick. “Fair dinkum, they were marvellous down there.”
George pipes up, “Do you want to know something funny?”
Mick tells a story: “In the ’70s, ‘Gorgeous’ George worked at the abattoirs, and he’s going to work one morning, and the river was up, ready to flood.
“I said to him, ‘If you can’t get home, we’ll launch the boat and get you home.’ Sure enough, that afternoon, [the flood] come through the crossroads.
“George lives down Ryan Street and he couldn’t get home. So, we launched the boat in Bligh Street and headed down near the old aerodrome at South Grafton and, up the road a bit, there’s the Royal Hotel.
“Well, we’ve got to have a beer. The whole idea now is to get George home dry.”
Joyce: “George was wet on the inside, but dry on the outside.”
Mick: “So, we’ve pulled up at the front of the Royal Hotel.”
Fay: “You forgot to say I was in the boat, too.”
Mick: “I’m coming to that. Anyhow, we’ve thrown a rope through the window, because Fay’s sitting in the boat, and Geroge and I went into the pub.”
Fay: “They were up to their knees in water.”
Mick: “And the next thing we hear is, ‘help, help!’. Fay’s out in the middle of Ryan Street.”
Fay: “The rope didn’t hold very well.”
Joking, Mick turned to George in the pub and said, ‘She’s your girlfriend, you go and rescue her.’
“We pulled her back in again and had another beer,” says Mick.
Then it happened again. George recalls Fay saying to Mick, ‘For God’s sake, get him home.’
A boat ride via Hawthorne Park followed, however, once they got George through the gate at his back fence, Mick says, “he had to change his clothes because they were all bloody wet from rescuing his girlfriend”. Laughs all around.
So, what makes them proud of their sixty years of marriage together? “The fact that we got here,” says Mick. “And the fact we are still friends says George.
“We’ve always been there for one another,” says Joyce.