Platinum years best spent together
By Taylor Clyne
March 03, 2021
Celebrating a platinum anniversary is surely one for the ages but for North Scottsdale love birds Alan and Daphne Mathewson it's just another day together.
Seventy years married today, Wednesday March 3, the couple reflect on their full life and how a billy of milk was the first encounter that sparked it all.
“I was working for the public works in those days building a bridge across the road from where Daphne lived with her family,” Alan said.
“My boss sent me over to get some milk, Daph was just seventeen at the time.”
Their first official date was at the Ringarooma Show and after courting over several weekends, they later liked to attend singing competitions at the Lyric Theatre – neither of them were singers but they loved to go and listen.
Daphne was the eldest of eight children, growing up in Forester Flats – the location that the pair chose to tie the knot on her family farm.
Alan hailed from Lilydale growing up right beside the original lavender farm.
“It was the depression time; everybody was hard up, and my father was a returned soldier from the war.
“He got a soldier settlement for his first place and worked a lot for the lavender on contract,” Alan said.
“I left school at thirteen and a half, Daph did the same – you see the war was on, they were thinking more about war than the kids back then.
“A lot of the men were away, that’s when women started working more.”
Alan worked cutting lavender by hand for four weeks of the year across the 60 acres, for every 960 pounds of lavender he was paid one pound.
“It was good work, but I got a lot of bee stings, I was stung nearly every day,” he laughed.
Despite working on the farm Alan said his main living income came from rabbit skins.
“Just before we got married Alan got a job contracting down the Midlands, we spent quite a while down there in the end,” Daphne said.
“We lived in a caravan to start with as Alan was moving around a lot.”
The pair believed paying rent was dead money, so they decided to buy a tram and set it up in Campbell Town central to Alan’s work.
“Jeff our eldest son was the first boy to live in a tram!
“I worked around Campbell Town doing quite a bit of rotary hoeing, I got a contract to hoe all the back streets – it was set out to be a big town back then, but nobody turned up, so people just ran their cows on the streets to keep the grass down.”
Wages for men back in those days were ten pound a week with provisions of a cow and half a sheep a week too for food.
“We got paid every three months.”
Both of their two boys, Jeff and Nevil, were born in the little Campbell Town Hospital with their two girls arriving a few years later when they’d moved again, welcoming Merrilyn and Jenny.
“Daph was the home maker and a good one at that, she raised the children for us.”
After travelling around the state following work for many years the couple eventually purchased their property that they still reside in today at North Scottsdale in 1962.
“It was 132 acres to start with, we later purchased another 128 and then a further 80 acres.
“We mainly did dairy our whole life and later got into beef.
“Dairy is different now to what it used to be; we only milked a small amount of cows to what people do now.
“At our peak we milked about 86 cows.”
Alan loved going to the cattle sales during his years being a farmer, he’d buy and sell things all the time and love the social side.
“I liked going to the clearing sales and I think Daph was always concerned about what I might bring home,” he laughed.
Daphne recalls many a times that Alan and Jeff would take rubbish to the tip and often come home with more things that they took.
“I used to think ‘good god what will they bring home this time’,” she laughed.
After the passing of Jeff, grandson Adam has taken over the farm for the couple, keeping the land in the Mathewson name as Alan wanted.
“We have eight children and eight great grand children.
“Family is the highlight of our lives,” Daphne said.
Every May holidays the pair used to take their kids down to their shack at Tomahawk, making many memories there by the beach.
“Kids have been a great blessing to us, my word they’ve been good to us.”
“Our advice would be enjoy your family while they are young and give and take in your marriage.
“I supposed everyone has their little stories, we had our ups and downs along the way – but we had a lot of fun,” Alan said.
The couple enjoyed the special occasion alongside their family with a meal at home on Sunday.