Dream comes true on blind date
Keith Rowe (85) knew he would marry Joan (83) the moment he set eyes on her.
The couple, who met in their teens, first laid eyes on one another on a blind date in 1947.
Keith met Joan when he collected her from a train station in the UK, for the picnic the two were due to have with another couple.
Keith fell in love with Joan at their first meeting.
“The moment I saw her, I thought: ‘I’m going to marry her’,” he said.
“… She wore a red dress.
“It was as if it was a photo image of what I expected to get.
“When she stepped off the train the first thing I did was stare at her, because it was as if my request, as it were, had been granted.”
The Rynpark Two couple celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary on September 30.
While they were having their first picnic, Keith had to return home for family lunch.
“In the middle of the picnic I told Joan that I had to go home,” he recalled.
Joan thought Keith had wiggled himself out of the meeting and was dubious that she’d ever see him again.
“I thought I’ll just disappear and get on a bus and go home,” said Joan.
Keith, however, returned roughly two hours later, much to his future wife’s delight.
Joan married her first boyfriend in Leigh-On-Sea, Essex, in 1950 and they moved to South Africa in 1963.
The pair told the City Times they have been able to stay together for so long due to their ability to make compromises in their relationship and through their love for one another.
They have two children, Carol Coleman (62) and Gerald Rowe (55), along with four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
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