Somerset Park couple celebrates 60th anniversary

A CHANCE meeting at an office party in Pietermaritzburg was the spark that ignited a Somerset Park couple’s love story 60 years ago.

Last week, George and Moonyeen Muller celebrated their diamond wedding and were surrounded by family at a Durban North restaurant – an occasion that even an electrical storm and load-shedding could not dampen.

George was a sub-editor on the Natal Witness and Moonyeen (nee Fannin) was a teacher at Sharona Pre-primary School when they met at the home of Moonyeen’s aunt, Natalie Juul, the Witness social editor.

“Moon was in the kitchen preparing an ice bucket. I handed over a packet of peanuts I’d been asked to bring. We clicked immediately.”

George, who started on the Cape Times and Chronicle, Bulawayo, was due to leave for Kimberley to become the chief sub-editor on the Diamond Fields Advertiser. “I had to act fast, so I popped the question. We were engaged within two weeks.” Five months later they were married by the Reverend Victor Shaw at St Thomas’s Church in Musgrave Road.

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“’Marry in haste, repent at leisure’ is the old saying. I think we’ve shown that is not always true,” said George.

After a honeymoon down the Garden Route, they lived for a year in Kimberley, before they returned to KwaZulu-Natal. George spent the next 28 years in various capacities on the Sunday Tribune and Daily News, and ended as an assistant editor and daily columnist.

He also freelanced as a cartoonist, notably with his daily pocket cartoon, ‘By George’, that ran for 27 years in newspapers across the country.

George (85) and Moonyeen (84) have two daughters – Andrea Watson and Lauren Muller – five grandchildren, Callum, Katelyn and Erin Watson and, Joshua and Daniel Robins, plus two great-grandchildren, Oliver and Emma Watson.

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After he completed his BA at the Natal University, George took the family to London for two years to study for a diploma in TV production. To pay for their Chelsea flat, he worked after hours on the Sun, the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Times.

“We’ve always enjoyed close family interaction, which has been a blessing for us,” said Moonyeen.

The secret to their success? “Shared values, including a sense of humour,” they agreed. “But above all, our bedrock of faith that has sustained us through thick and thin, especially when we lost our third daughter, Heather, at the age of 11.”

And their longevity? “That we owe mainly to our genes,” said Moonyeen. “My parents lived to celebrate their 64th anniversary. My dad lived to just months short of 90, George’s mum to 95, and my mum to 99.”