It takes two, me and you

Ivy and Thomas Hailey still glow at the sight of each other as they reflect on their happy marriage of 76 years.

Ivy, now 95, and Tom, who turns 100 in September, have travelled three-quarters of a century together, including wars, moving to Australia and raising a family.

The couple were married in Wantage Parish Church on December 26, 1942, and moved to Mt Barker in 1958, where they stayed until moving to Baptistcare’s Bethel Residential Care in 2018.

Ivy said the secret to a long and happy marriage was going through life as a team.

“It has never been Ivy and Tom, it has always been us,” she said.

“When I look back with the Great Depression and the war, everyone was the same in those days — we had to ration.

“I would write a shopping list out, he’d come home with his money and we would go through it and cross things out that we didn’t need this week and could wait for.

“We always laugh that because we got married on a special day he had to pay double for me.”

Tom, who was an ambulance driver in Dunkirk, came to Australia 10 months before Ivy and their children.

Tom worked for a small engineering business in Mt Barker before taking it over, and he and his daughter and son-in-law Bob and Jean Hough opened Peaceful Bay Caravan Park in 1971.

The couple have four children, nine grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren.