New Year’s Eve is always special, but for Bonnie and Grahame Morrison, it was the start of a lifetime together.
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The Bomaderry couple, then aged 17 and 19, had each gone out in Gosford to see in the new year with friends.
Fortunately, Bonnie’s friend knew Grahame’s mate and the group all met for a coffee. The unofficial matchmakers turned out to be onto something and Bonnie and Grahame began dating.
Two years later the pair tied the knot on June 17, 1967. Fifty years later, on June 17, 2017 they celebrated their golden anniversary.
They married at the Church of England in Ettalong on the Central Coast, before 65 of their closest friends and family.
Grahame’s twin brother and best mate were groomsmen and Bonnie’s sisters-in-law were her bridesmaids.
“I found the receipt for our wedding recently, and with the hot roast chicken and trifle, the whole thing came to 85 pounds – about $170 in today’s world,” Bonnie said.
“I originally asked my mother to make the dress but then I went to Sydney and fell in love with another dress as soon as I saw it. It was 35 pounds and mum was very relieved she didn’t have to make it.”
The couple set out for their honeymoon – but hit a few glitches along the way.
“The first night was in Katoomba and it was so cold. I cried all the way there because I was such a family girl and I didn’t want to be away from them,” Bonnie said.
“We hit a kangaroo in Wellington and we were going to go up to Queensland but we were cut off by the floods so we were only away for a week in the end.”
In their early married years, Bonnie completed her hairdressing apprenticeship, while Grahame was in the Navy and worked at HMAS Albatross.
He used to hitchhike from Gosford to Nowra.
“If you had your uniform on you were safe,” Grahame said.
The couple moved to Nowra when Bonnie completed her apprenticeship. After only three months Grahame was drafted on to Navy ship, The Melbourne for two years.
As a young bride, Bonnie remembers it being a difficult time.
“We’d only been married about three years and I was a long way from my family and friends,” she said.
“You had to do it though, you didn’t have a choice.
“The Navy used to say ‘if we wanted our men to have wives we would have issued them with one’,”.
The pair began the next chapter of their lives together in 1971 when they welcomed their first son Darren. In 1974 their second son Scott was born.
They built their family home in Shoalhaven Heads and embraced the coastal life.
“Both boys were in the surf life saving club, Grahame was president of the Shoalhaven Heads Berry Soccer Club and I was the soccer registrar,” Bonnie said.
“Grahame was also the coach and Scott later became a coach when he was 13. He used to coach the under 7s and they just loved it.”
After 24 years the couple downsized and moved to Bomaderry. Grahame left the Navy in 1985 but became a gardener for the Commodore for 10 years. He later began a new career and retrained as a patient service assistant in a local hospice.
“I looked after the terminally ill. I was hard but very rewarding,” he said.
“You knew if you got through a day you had achieved something.”
A job as a wardman at Nowra Private Hospital followed and Grahame kept the position for 15 years, before retiring in 2011.
Bonnie was involved in many volunteering roles, including running the canteen at Shoalhaven Heads Public School. She was a full-time carer for Grahame’s mother and later took a job in the Australian Electoral Commission, Division of Gilmore.
In 2014 the couple suffered a devastating tragedy.
Their eldest son Scott died at just 40-years-old. He was killed in a car crash on Culburra Road.
‘We won’t ever get over it. We do our best though and we’ve had to work together and be there for each other,” Bonnie said.
“What’s happened with Scott brought us closer together. It’s the worst thing to lose such a beautiful child.
“Grahame’s had to do some terrible things and he’s been there and taken charge of that.”
The pair said Scott’s children, Lillian, 10, and Charlotte, 7, along with Darren’s daughter Maddison, 15, bring joy to their lives.
While Darren and his family live in Queensland, the younger girls spend their weekends with Nanny and Poppy.
“We like to do everything with them at that Scott would. He loved the ocean and the outdoors and we can see him coming through them,” Bonnie said.
“We just go everywhere with them. They fill our lives.”
Scott was well-known in the local community for his impressive Christmas light display. Every year he welcomed the hordes of cars who would come to see the magic.
“He had to speak to everyone, people would arrive and he’d go over and say ‘how you doing?’. That was his favourite saying,” Bonnie said.
“He had the biggest smile and he was just a genuinely caring person. He loved kids and the amount of money he gave to the children’s ward at the hospital was well over $100,000.”
The couple said they keep Scott’s memory alive with his children and have installed a seat on the Shoalhaven River in his honour.
“He loved to fish, anything to to do with the water he loved,” Bonnie said.
“The girls call it ‘Daddy’s river’.”
After 50 years of marriage Bonnie and Grahame said the secret to their lifetime of love come down to one thing – being there for each other.
“You can’t say it’s perfect everyday and you have your ups and downs but we’ve always shared everything,” Bonnie said.
“Grahame does a lot of inside work and I do a lot outside. We work together.”