81 years together – and still not sick of each other

THEY don’t claim to have the secret to a long marriage, but Howard and Mavis Willey have just marked 81 years together.

At 102 years old, the Willeys are just happy to still be facing life together.

Meeting as teenagers, Howard was as smitten with Mavis as he is now. Mavis on the other hand took a bit of warming up.

“Howard’s sister married my brother,” Mavis said.

“He used to bring her down to our place and that’s how I met him. I didn’t like him much at first. He grew on me.”

Marrying in 1945 was a different task to today, with rations still in place as the second world war was yet to end. The pair celebrated their union with 70 people, with Mavis in a blue dress made by her cousin.

As soldiers began to return from the war, the young couple struggled at first to find a home. The one they found wasn’t flash, but it became filled with memories that they still laugh about today.

“We had a lot of good times,” Mavis said. “We had bad times too, but we accept a lot of things.

“I can remember when we first married, we had a job to get a house because the soldiers were coming back from the war, and they had first preference.

“We managed to get a little cottage yard along the road. It had cracks in the door and cracks at the windows.”

There was no electricity and they collected water from a well, but they were happy.

Howard was living his dream as a farmer and Mavis loved being a mother, working a variety of jobs while helping Howard and keeping the household functioning.

Even the cracks in the walls had their purpose.

“When the tornado came, you could hear it screaming across the bay,” Howard said.

“We never lost a thing. The chimney rocked, the roof stayed on. The house a couple hundred yards down the road lost his roof, he lost everything, lost his chimney.

 

“Our old place lost nothing.”

The pair still laugh at how their weathered cottage withstood the storm.

“The wind came in one crack and went out the other,” Mavis said.

It’s one of many stories from years gone by. They laugh about the ban on cows in the street and the near-instant karma for the councillor who suggested it, and recall watching Portarlington grow from paddocks into one of the Bellarine’s most popular towns.

Despite their age, the pair can tell a story unlike any other. Their quick wit and ability to bounce off one another has been shaped over eight decades of conversation.

Together they raised four daughters and have had the joy of watching their grandchildren and great-grandchildren grow.

A keen tennis player as a child, Howard later turned to football, joining Portarlington to help bring the club out of recess after the war. From tin sheds and no hot water, generations of the Willey family have watched it grow into what it is today.

As centenarians, the Willeys they know one day they won’t be facing the world together, but they’ve got no fear.

“We have a lot of faith and that faith has seen us through a lot of things,” Mavis said. “We’re blessed.

That faith continues to guide them as they look ahead.

“We look forward to being in Heaven now – the next step together. We look forward to that,” Howard said.

On March 24, 1945 Mavis and Howard made vows to be together for the rest of their lives and in 2026, they’re continuing to uphold that promise.

“It’s a matter of give and take,” Mavis said.

“That’s the secret I think, accepting what you can’t change.”