What started with a young man taking parcels into a Paeroa shoe store back in the 1970s has turned into 50 years of marriage, delivering love and memories.

Bellevue couple Trish (nee Odlum) and Ian McGonigal celebrated their golden, 50th wedding anniversary last month.

The pair said they met while Trish was working at Bates Shoe store in Paeroa and Ian was working as a truck driver. Two years later they were engaged.

The couple wed on August 7, 1976, at St Mary’s Catholic Church in Paeroa.

“Where Trish worked was two doors down from the road service depot and we were introduced basically by some mutual friends that knew Trish’s parents and my parents,” said Ian, aged 75.

“The guys at work got to hear about it, so every time there was a parcel to take to the shoe shop, it was my job to go meet this chick,” he said.

“I’d go in, in shorts, boots and a singlet.

“We were pretty busy in the shoe store in the afternoons, and he came in and stood silently waiting,” said Trish, aged 71.

First date

Their first impressions of one another? “She was quite a good looker,” said Ian.

“I suppose you were stable,” said Trish. “You weren’t a loony!”

The couple’s first date was at the Thames Picture Theatres.

“It was a war movie,” said Trish. “Fancy taking a girl to a war movie? Especially where they all get taken to a concentration camp…”

Ian and Trish were married at St Mary’s Catholic Church in Paeroa, on August 7, 1976. Photo / Supplied

“I’m not really the romantic type,” said Ian. “Never have been – but that was it. We clicked.”

Heading into married life, the couple wound up in Tauranga in 1978 after Ian had a job transfer with New Zealand Road Services. The pair became proud parents of two daughters, Heather in 1981, and Louise in 1983, and today have two granddaughters.

In love and in business

While raising their daughters, the couple owned and ran a same-day courier business from Tauranga to Gisborne.

For more than 20 years Ian ran deliveries while Trish headed the administration side of things.

Starting their own courier business was “just a crazy idea,” Ian said, after he finished his job with New Zealand Couriers.

“We decided we’d have a crack at that. It was actually a guy that put me onto it to give it a go … he gave me a list of five or six customers to go and see that he knew would use [the service] and so I went and saw them and started it from there.”

Teaming up as husband and wife in business went smoothly. “He was away a lot of it and I’d be here looking after the admin. It worked out well,” said Trish.

Thick and thin

Today the couple are happily retired. But 50 years of marriage hadn’t come without its trials. Both Trish and Ian faced health and medical hardships at the same time in 2016.

“Trish went through breast cancer the same time I had my two knees replaced,” said Ian.

“I had my operation in 2015 … then in January in the New Year, I started my chemo and everything, and that was hard,” said Trish.

“It all happened at once. We shut the business down for three or four months, but everybody came back … It was trying but we got through it.”

‘Agree to disagree’

And the burning truth to having a successful marriage?

“Just agree to disagree,” said Ian. “Compromise is a big thing. If you come across a sticky situation, you work it out together.”

“The ones these days, they give up,” Trish said.

Kicking back in their reclining chairs, the couple said they still knew how to give compliments too. “He hasn’t aged very much,” said Trish. “I don’t know about that,” Ian fired back.

“Trish is very determined. Strong-minded I suppose you’d say,” said Ian.

“Ian’s been there for us all and we’re in this together,” reckons Trish.