A Natimuk and district couple surpassed an impressive milestone on the weekend, commemorating seven decades together. 

Coral and Alec Webb looked back on 70 years of marriage on Sunday, February 4, when they celebrated their wedding anniversary with family.

Mrs Webb, 91, said the pair married at Horsham Methodist Church, when she was 21 and Alec was 22. 

“It was a pretty good day. It wasn’t hot. I began to wonder whether we picked the right month, but it was just a nice sunny day,” she said. 

Mrs Webb said the births of their children, Brian, Wendy, Dennis, Trevor and Morris, were a highlight of their time spent together. 

She said the couple raised the family on a farm at Grassflat, to the north-west of Natimuk. 

“On a farm it’s always busy,” Mrs Webb said. 

“I grew up in a family of farmers. My father was a farmer and during the war years I was working. Once I got to 14, I left school and I just worked on the farm.”

Mrs Webb said the key to their long-lasting marriage had been the ability to compromise.

“We have some disagreements, but they didn’t get out of proportion,” she said.

“He kept what he thought to himself, and I kept what I thought – and that was that, really. 

“We both had the same ideas about the way to bring up our family and there were no real problems at all.”

Mr Webb said an example of their consideration for each other was how his wife encouraged his love of sport, despite not being very interested herself. 

“I think I drove the last Clydesdale team in the district,” he said. 

“There was also the cricket. I remember Ballarat Country Week for the Arapiles team.  My main friends were there, and I suppose you learn a lot about your own association when you get together like that.

“I played football for Natimuk Lake and I was manager of the under-16 cricket team – we won two premierships, and our eldest son Brian was captain.”

– Sean O’Connell

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