Still on track after 60 years

By Dion Teasdale
SIXTY years of marriage between Bill and Joan Hollis of Coldstream are proof that some things in life are just meant to be.
The couple, who has spent most of the past six decades living, working and raising a family in the Yarra Valley, met by chance through a train and a small piece of paper.
Bill, serving in the Australian Army as part of the 24th Battalion during World War II, was travelling to Far North Queensland for a final stint of jungle training in September 1942.
As the train passed through Liverpool station in Sydney, he threw a small scrap of paper with his name and address on it out the window.
“It was what all the servicemen did then. It was about getting pen pals – people who might write to you while you were stationed overseas,” he explained.
The scrap of paper landed on the train station platform where 14-year-old Dot Dingle was waiting to catch a train to school.
“Dot picked up the piece of paper and brought it home and when our father saw it he told her she was too young to write to a soldier,” Joan recalls.
Joan, Dot’s 17-year-old sister, who had left school and was working in a biscuit factory in Sydney, secreted the piece of paper from their father and began writing to Bill.
“I told him about myself. I described my looks and what I was doing and he wrote back,” she said.
In early 1943 Bill was sent to serve with the Australian Army in New Guinea, so the initial letters were the beginning of an 18-month international romance via the post.
“We wrote to each other while Bill was in New Guinea. We sent photos and discussed how much we would like to meet,” she said.
Both Bill and Joan confess there was a bit of flirting in their letters and that it was through the writing that a natural affection developed between them.
It was not until August 1944, when Bill was on leave that the couple met for the first time.
Then, when Bill returned to Australia again in mid 1945, he asked Joan to marry him.
“It was hard finding an engagement ring in Sydney at that time because there were a lot of US servicemen in town and everyone was getting married,” he said.
Born in South Africa in 1922, Bill had grown up in Silvan and brought his fiancee to Victoria to begin a new life.
He married Joan on December 1, 1945 in the Gospel Hall in Silvan South.
“When the war ended in August and we were married shortly after, it felt like a new beginning,” she said.
After spending the first year of their marriage in Silvan, Bill and Joan moved to Coldstream where they have brought up five children and seen the birth of 14 grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
The couple said the secret to their happiness had been team work and hard work.
“We’ve lived through some tough times, but we’ve worked hard and done it together,” Joan said.
“We’ve never had a row over money because we never had any money to fight over and we’ve supported one another all the way.
“I guess you could say it was just meant to be, right from the start.”
Bill and Joan celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary late last month with 50 close friends and family at their Coldstream home.