Congratulations to Roy and Joyce Musgrove who will be celebrating 75 years of marriage on Tuesday, May 12.
They were married in South Bathurst Anglican Church the week after WWII ended in Europe.
Roy was in the Australian Army and stationed at Bathurst Army Camp, but luckily was never sent overseas. Originally from Sydney he met Joyce on a train travelling back from Sydney in the days when trains were pulled by steam engines.
Roy was born in 1922 and had three sisters and three brothers and lived with his mother and father in Arncliffe.
Money was short living through the Depression, especially with such a big family.
Back in those days, Sydney was a small town and Roy often told stories about the first aviators flying into Mascot Airport. The locals would run across empty land to see pioneer aviators such as Sir Charles Kingsford Smith arrive from his Pacific crossing in 1928 and later Amy Johnson fly in from London in 1930.
Joyce was a dressmaker born in Bathurst, however when the war arrived she was sent to work in the ammunitions factory. She always said that Bathurst really came alive when the army arrived with lots of cafes and cinemas opening and, of course, dances on Saturday night.
Joyce’s father Henry Bower was a steam train driver who worked alongside Ben Chifley who, of course, later became Prime Minister.
After they married and moved to Sydney, they bought some land in the new subdivision of Padstow Heights and had the first house in Roma Avenue. They had two children, Darryl and Janine and lived there until 2015 when they decided to move to Beechwood Aged Care Home at Revesby where they are today.
