By NICOLE VALICEK
A couple who met by chance at a hamburger shop will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary this week.
The Bedella’s, of Brooklyn, will celebrate six decades of marriage on Thursday.
Donald and Lorraine were married at St Andrews Church in Footscray on 12 December, 1953.
The family will toast their diamond anniversary at a special function organised by their four daughters Donna, Linda, Vicki and Julie.
The Bedella’s met at a local hamburger hang out in Footscray.
Donald, who rode a motorbike, was there with his mates and Lorraine was waiting at a nearby tram stop with her sister after tennis.
“It started by talking to the motorbike boys on the way home,” she said.
The couple, who moved to Brooklyn in 1954, said they have enjoyed their life and cherish their four children and eight grandchildren.
Lorraine thinks back and laughs at times during their courtship when they would attend local dancers together.
“He went with me to the dance one night I told him to sit at the other end of the wall or no one will dance with me so he went home.”
The pair has had many adventures including one memorable motorbike ride along the Great Ocean Rd.
“In those days girls rode on the back of motorbikes, we went down on the Ocean Rd on a new motorbike and we went over the edge,” Donald said.
“Luckily it was a gradual decline, we didn’t go straight down. They pulled the bike back up with other bikes and we rode back home.”
When asked to share the secret to six decades of marriage the couple agreed they did not know the recipe, but that they did everything together.
“I really don’t know,” Lorraine said.
“He’s got patience, I haven’t,” she added.
The couple are well known in the community especially for Lorraine’s work with the Lorraine Bedella Seniors Centre in Altona North, after whom it was renamed in 2004.
