IT WAS dubbed the ‘atomic romance’.
Mandurah residents Ted and Joan Bailey will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary this month, but their whirlwind relationship started with a bang.
Mr Bailey was part of the Royal British Navy when he travelled to Australia in 1952 on a ship carrying Britain’s first atomic bomb.
The pair met at the British embassy in Perth and spent just 36 hours together before Mr Bailey left for the uninhabited Monte Bello Islands of the north-west coast to test the bomb.
They kept in contact with letters for two years and in 1954 Mrs Bailey travelled to Malta where her future husband was stationed with the Navy.
“I got to Malta four days before the wedding but I almost didn’t get there because the weather was so bad,” Mrs Bailey said.
“I had to take this tiny Venetian-style boat to get from the ship to the shore sitting ankle-deep in water.
“Then on the morning of the wedding we couldn’t find Ted’s ring – it had rolled under a bed so we borrowed one from a man standing at the door of the church to use in the ceremony.”
The pair came to back to Perth in 1958 and retired to the RAAFA estate in Meadow Springs.
Now with two children, four grandchildren and one great-grandchild, the couple say their secret to six happy decades together was respecting each other.
“I can’t say we’ve never had a cross word, but you agree to differ,” Mr Bailey said.
“You just do your best to keep them happy.”