Laughter, love the key

Phyllis Marsh had plenty of visitors last week to wish her many happy returns for her birthday, but at 99 years old, she said it’s just another day.

Next year, however, is the birthday she is eagerly awaiting.

“I have a goal. I’d like to make it to 100,” Mrs Marsh, a “one-eyed” Fremantle Dockers fan, said.

Seated next to her on the verandah of the home they bought for 420 pounds in 1937, her husband, Roderick, better known as “Pom”, interjected: “And I’d like to make it to 103,” he said.

Mrs Marsh quipped back, “I’ve been trying to catch up to him for years, but he keeps getting away from me,” she said.

And so the banter goes back and forth.

Having celebrated their 79th wedding anniversary on Saturday, the Marshes have had plenty of practise at this jovial verbal ping-pong.

Geraldton-born and bred, Mr Marsh was a wet line fisherman working on a sailing boat when he fell for Phyllis Perry, a 17-year-old who worked in a restaurant-cum-fruit shop in Marine Terrace.

“Well, he had a mop of curly black hair and he wasn’t too bad looking,” Mrs Marsh said.

The two married in Geraldton in 1936.

They have five children, 10 grandchildren, 11 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.

During World War II, Mr Marsh was enlisted to work at the Geraldton wharf where he worked until he retired in 1978.

Mrs Marsh remained at home to raise their family.

The death of two of their children in separate tragedies, one a car accident, the other to leukaemia, has been the greatest sadness they’ve faced together.

And, what is the secret of remaining married to the same person for nearly eight decades?

“It pays to have an argument every now and then, to clear the air,” Mrs Marsh said.

“But everyone’s got to work out their own destiny … give and take. Sometimes you’ve got to give in and go along with them,” she said with a sideways glance at her husband.