Best quality? He peels potatoes

KIRK HARGREAVES/The Press

HAPPY TOGETHER: Bert, 93, and Patricia Archbold, 92, have been married for 76 years. They set off on their honeymoon on a bicycle.

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The secret to a long-lasting marriage may be a husband who is happy to peel the potatoes.

A Christchurch couple celebrate their 76th wedding anniversary today. They believe it could be New Zealand's longest marriage.

Bert Archbold, 93, met his wife, Patricia, 92, when he was riding a horse down Oliviers Rd in Phillipstown in the early 1930s.

A chance meeting a few years later led to a marriage that has produced 14 children and more than 90 grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren.

Patricia was pregnant, so there was no long engagement.

They married after work on a Friday, then she perched on the handlebars of his bicycle as they rode to their honeymoon celebration – a night at the Majestic cinema where they shared an icecream.

"I sat on the bars of the bike and we've been in love ever since," Patricia Archbold said.

"We feel just the same about one another today."

The pair are going deaf and blind, but say the secret to years of happy matrimony is to "talk things over and help one another".

At their Woolston home yesterday, Bert Archbold said they rarely argued.

"But it used to be good making up, that was the best bit of the lot," he said.

"We think the same. There's no shouting or screaming."

Patricia said her husband's best quality was that "he peels the potatoes".

"And we're still in love. Nothing can destroy that," she said.

They could not afford photographs of their wedding day, but Patricia said she wore a lovely red coat and red shoes.

Bert had to buy a second wedding ring some years ago because the first one was worn out.

An internet search said the world's oldest marriage was between a Welsh couple.

Their marriage lasted 81 years and 260 days before one of the pair died.

- © Fairfax NZ News