KLOOF couple, Peter and Frances Brunwin, celebrated their diamond anniversary on Thursday, 1 September.
The two love birds met in 1954 and were married at Kingston Church, Sussex, in 1956.
Frances was a companion to a local woman and Peter was a bookseller. The Brunwins have lived most of their lives travelling to different countries because of Peter’s job.
Frances said, Peter is kind and thoughtful and they rarely argue as they share the same interests.
“What attracted me to him was his moustache and he was tall, dark and handsome,” she said.
Peter said Frances beauty and her intelligence was what attracted him to her.
“In a relationship, you should be unselfish, and we are guided by the verse which says, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’.
“If you live your life based on those words, you learn to be honest and avoid hurting the people you love,” said Peter.
Peter was first appointed by his firm to a post at their head office in London and travelled daily by train to the head office and eventually became a management consultant within their retail group.
Frances stayed in the Sussex village of Barcombe where they raised their two children; Clare and Mark.
Another move took them to the City of York for some years and then moved back to Barcombe. An appointment as managing director to the largest educational book distributors in Africa, then took the family to Lagos, Nigeria, where seven years of travelling to many countries in West Africa stimulated their taste for travel.
The 1974 depression in the UK decided them to look South and after an exploratory visit which convinced them that change would come, they packed their Range Rover and drove through west, central and Southern Africa, finally settling in Cape Town, where they lived for the most of their 35 years. Peter was working as a property manager and Frances as a representative for Burhose and then as a stage manager at The Baxter Theatre.
Taking retirement as early as possible they let their house in Zeekoevlei and Peter joined the crew of a friend’s yatch to sail from Cape Town to Gibraltar, a journey that took three months with stopovers at St Helena, Ascension Island and the Azores.
The forthcoming marriage of their daughter, Clare, sent them scuttling back to Cape Town where they settled once again among old friends.
The next several year were spent by Frances working in children’s theatre and Peter working as a charter skipper at the Waterfront until 70 when they finally moved to Kloof where their daughter lived for a number of years.
Currently their interests are reading, birdwatching, and hospice volunteering and fighting their computer.
