‘Don’t marry too early – I was lucky’

By LES WATKINS - Rodney Times

Having her 90th birthday this Sunday, Margaret Eyton of Kumeu feels qualified to offer advice she considers important to young women in love.

Don’t make the mistake of marrying too speedily like I did," she says. "I didn’t realise then what a gamble I was taking and you may not be as lucky as me."

But, she adds, luck alone can’t make a marriage as successful as the one she and husband Victor have enjoyed for 67 years.

"Oh no, you also have to work at it," she says. "We’ve had our arguments and we still have words, because that’s the way life is, but it’s so wonderfully worthwhile."

Margaret, nee Grainger, admits she liked the look of Victor, a soldier two years younger than herself, when she first saw him sitting nearby on a tram.

"In fact, I thought he was pretty top-notch," she says.

Victor felt the same about her.

A couple of tram journeys later he invited her to see a film and within a few months they were married at Huntly on September 12, 1942.

"But you don’t really get to know someone just by going to dances and the movies and that’s how we were when we got hitched," says Margaret.

"As I say, I was lucky in having found the right fella, but it was a risk. So, although I may shock some people by saying so, I think it’s sensible for people to live together for a while.

"That’ll give them a fuller picture of what the other one’s like and only then should they decide whether or not to marry."

Life changed dramatically for Margaret after World War Two when she and Victor originally decided to live in Rodney.

He was then based at Ohakea, having switched from the army to the air force, and she was a seamstress.

They became sharemilkers at Matakana and lived in an old army hut they rented while building their own house.

"We worked hard and the hours were long but that’s never worried either of us," says Margaret. "We even made our own concrete bricks for the house because money was tight and so the construction took rather a long time.

"And we still enjoy looking after the housework ourselves and doing the gardening."

After leaving Matakana they ran a hardware shop in Auckland for 10 years, and 30 years ago they moved to Kumeu.

The surviving two of their four children will be joined on Saturday for a family reunion in the Taupaki School hall by more than 120 friends and relatives – including seven grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.

The celebration dubbed 90 Years of Family and Friends includes a book of accolades for people to write about Margaret, which already has congratulations from Prime Minister and Helensville MP John Key.

Saturday’s theme is In the Living Years and provides an opportunity for people to share the way they feel about Margaret while everyone is still alive, son Philip says.

He is working on a family history which traces the Eytons back to England in 1066.

They were sheriffs of Shropshire where three villages carry the family name, managing lands conquered after the Battle of Hastings.