Wedding photograph and text. Black and white photo shows man in suit and woman in white wedding dress with bouquet standing in doorway of brick church. Text describes meeting Pat, their courtship, and marriage date.
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What the page says
Once we got over the first part of meeting each other, we found out we had both been up on the Gold Coast, in Brisbane, at the same time. What a coincidence! Strange! We also at the same time, same dance, had another occurrence. Pat's girl friend, Phyllis, met Alec. Then the four of us got to be a group and we went nearly everywhere together. That was the beginning of five years of courtship. As to whether I had to ask for Pat Coleman's hand in marriage...I was almost living at her place and only went home to sleep. I was almost part of the family then, wasn't I?!
I was living in Coburg; Pat was in Preston, so it was quite a way to go. If I was too late for the bus I had to walk and it was a long walk. Then I got a bit of sense and got my push bike. Pat was working in an Adams Cake Shop between looking after her sick mother and by the time we got married she was employed at Myer's.
We got married on the 4th of July 1959 in a Presbyterian Church in Regent, near Preston. Funny, after nearly fifty years it is hard to remember all the details!
DEREK AND PAT'S WEDDING 4th JULY 1959
Under twenty-one needed permission. The age of majority was twenty-one. A couple marrying below it needed a parent's consent, and in the 1950s and 60s that was a common conversation: the median age at first marriage fell to the lowest it has ever been in Australia.
