Neville and Betty Celebrate Valentine’s Day

As we celebrate Valentine's Day each year, we get to hear about our resident’s stories of love and friendship. This year we talked to childhood sweethearts, Neville and Betty, who both live at Mayflower Brighton’s Residential Aged Care Accommodation.

Neville and Betty are lifelong friends, having met when they were 12 years old. Neville, having taken a fancy to Betty, used to follow her home from school on his bike. He would then sit quietly outside her window, listening to the beautiful sounds of Betty playing piano. This was the start of an amazing and enduring friendship that blossomed into love and then marriage.

Neville and Betty married in 1950 at St Andrews church in Middle Brighton. They lived with Betty’s parents for the first two years of marriage before building their family home in Hampton. They set up a dental practice shortly after, where they worked happily together until retirement, with Neville as the dentist and Betty as his assistant.

Neville and Betty are fortunate to have a large and loving family, with 4 children - Mark, Paul, Tony and Helen, 11 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren.

Neville was fortunate to drive an Austin 7 car in their early years of marriage, although it sometimes struggled with steep hill climbs. So when Betty was pregnant with Helen, she would frequently hop out of the car and walk up a hill while their sons helped push the Austin to the top. Betty would then get back into the car and they would all drive off again to their destination.

Both Neville and Betty shared a lifelong love for adventure, from their early days as members of the 1st Hampton Scouts to flying around Australia in a small plane in 1974. It was the trip of a lifetime, taking three weeks to experience the many wonders this great country has to offer.

They were also active in sports and arts. Both Neville and Betty were bowling champions, and Betty loved playing tennis, golf and running. Betty also became a very accomplished piano player playing Gilbert and Sullivan for nearly a decade to different scout group musicals.

Betty has always supported Neville in anything he has chosen to pursue and feels her greatest achievement in life was to marry Neville. After 68 wonderful years together, Betty and Neville’s secret for an enduring marriage is being supportive, working as a team and being flexible.