Above: Keith and Beryl on their wedding day on 21 May 1960.
By Mara Pattison-Sowden
KEITH and Beryl Ryan agree the best part of their life so far had been running the butchery in the main street of Warburton.
The couple celebrated 50 years of marriage last month by taking a trip up to where they first met in Yea.
Keith Ryan came down from Jerilderie, New South Wales, with £10 in his pocket to work in the Yea butchery, where he would see Beryl in the main street.
“I worked in the Yea Chronicle and would run over to the post office,” Mrs Ryan said.
“His sister-in-law Marge told him to ask me out when I was 16.”
After two years the couple got engaged, and on 21 May 1960 Keith Ryan married Beryl Wentworth at the Sacred Heart Church in Yea.
After living and working in North Croydon and Yarra Junction, the couple moved up to Warburton to open their own butcher’s shop in the main street.
Mr Ryan said they worked the shop for 26 years and took pride in looking after the locals.
“We used to serve them at all hours. If they had the money I’d serve them at the back door in the middle of the night,” he said.
Mrs Ryan said it was a great place for the children to grow up – they had four girls and one boy.
“The kids loved living behind the river,” she said.
They eventually sold the building to St Vincent de Paul and retired further down the highway where they live today.
Mr Ryan said life just goes on, “you don’t realise that you’re getting old until you start looking at the younger ones”, but they still get out and will enjoy a trip to New Zealand later in the year thanks to their children and 11 grandchildren.
Their grandchildren wrote a beautiful anniversary card telling them how grateful they are to have wonderful grandparents who “taught us all the sharing and caring and gave us guidance rather than telling us what to do and they always left the cookie jar filled for us”.
