Nowra’s Jack and June Tarlington recently marked 70 years of of marriage.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
This puts them in less than .01 per cent of the worlds population that can say they have been married for that long – no small feat.
The couple met at a dance at Blackheath and Mr Tarlington was smitten. He says it was love at first sight.
A courtship of three months followed before Jack picked up the courage to ask June’s father Cecil Hadley for her hand in marriage.
They had their honeymoon at Terrigal beach before moving in with Jack’s mother in Blackheath.
This was the days of kerosene lamps and apparently times were tough and if you couldn’t afford kerosene for the lamps you couldn’t read at night. There was also no televisions. The year was 1948.
They went on to have four children, 10 grandchildren and Jack says he’s lost count of the number of great grandchildren.
He proudly talks about June being a first fleet descendant of Thomas Spencer, a Marine and a first fleet convict Mary Phillips.
They moved from Sydney to the South Coast in 1969 and resided at Falls Creek for 17 years before moving on to West Cambewarra.
Fifteen years later ill health forced a move into Nowra and more recently Osbourne House where they now both reside.
Jack and June have both been active members of the local community with June working for the local Smith family as a volunteer and Jack working on various local building projects as well as being an active member of the Bomaderry RSL for many years. They are role models to be admired.