New Milton couple Pauline and Ken Agate celebrate 70th wedding anniversary
A COUPLE who met when they were teenagers are celebrating their 70th anniversary.
Pauline Agate fell for husband Ken on first sight and “did all the chasing to get him”, eventually marrying him three years later when she was 18.
Ken (90) joked: “She chased me and unfortunately caught up with me and I’ve been suffering for the last 70 years.”
The couple, who live in New Milton, met when Pauline left night school one evening and spotted Ken walking along the street with her friend and boyfriend.
She said: “I thought he was lovely; I was only 15 and he was 16. It was love at first sight for me and I love him now as much as I did then.”
Pauline was lucky she was still alive to meet her future husband, having nearly died during the war when her home was bombed. She said: “My mum and I were buried inside our house. In the bedroom next door my uncle and his friend were killed. It was very sad.”
She and Ken were living in West Ealing, near London, when they met. Ken was an apprentice engineer and Pauline an office worker.
The couple were separated when Ken was called up for four years national service in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME), going to Libya for four years.
Pauline (89) said: “I cried every day, and we wrote to each other every day. We had wanted to get married before he went but my mother said I was too young.
“But we got married shortly after he came home. Our wedding day was on June 27th, 1953. My auntie, who was a tailoress, made the dress and I bought the material. It cost me £3.50!”
The couple had two sons and now have two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. They moved to New Milton in 2005 when a large crowd of their friends decided to retire to the area.
Pauline says she puts the success of their relationship down to “being a team together”, adding: “I won’t tell you that we never row, because I don’t believe people at all when they say that. We do; but generally we get on very well as we are so alike.
“We enjoy the same things, such as bowling, which we do regularly. But I don’t share Ken’s love of sailing. I’ve told him I’d get seasick in a puddle! But he still enjoys sailing on the Solent.”
The couple celebrated their special day with a family party at the Amberwood in Walkford. Son Andy, who travelled from his home in the Midlands for the celebration, said of his parents: “I see them as one person because they get on so well. It’s amazing really after all this time.
“They’ve been such a stable influence in my life, I still ask for their advice at the age of 60!”
