60 years of laughs and God

Madeline and Ron Bridgman have celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary this month. 264694_01 Photo: ROB CAREW

For six decades, Bunyip’s Madeline and Ron Bridgman have retained a strong marriage through life’s trials and tribulations. Gazette journalist SHELBY BROOKS caught up with them the day after their diamond wedding anniversary to hear their love story.

Ron and Madeline Bridgman share a lot of laughs recounting the story of how they met.

“Everybody laughs at our relationship, they just think we’re funny,” Madeline said.

“I don’t know how he got into our family actually.”

“She always said she wasn’t going to marry someone who couldn’t sing,” Ron added.

But here they are, 60 years later, Ron apparently still not able to hold a tune.

Their story begins in Burwood in the early 60s.

Ron was from Western Australia and joined the army at 15.

He came to Victoria to study as an army apprentice at Puckapunyal but would often stay with a friend in Burwood on the weekends.

Madeline was a Bunyip girl and attended Warragul High School.

She followed her passion for teaching at Burwood Teacher’s College, staying with a friend’s family in Burwood during her studies, where she would eventually meet Ron.

He was staying in a neighbouring house to Madeline, as a guest of the same family.

“He prayed and said if you get me into the army God, not knowing much about God and just looking at the stars, I’ll even go to church,” Madeline recalled.

The brother of the family Madeline was staying with was introducing Ron to Christianity.

The two first locked eyes in the kitchen of the home Madeline was staying in, however Ron had a girlfriend at the time.

“The house he was staying in didn’t have a telephone so he had to come into the other house I was staying in to ring up his girlfriend,” Madeline said.

The two became friends first but didn’t have a lot of interactions.

“We hardly ever crossed paths because I went home for weekends and he came to stay for the weekends,” Madeline said.

“I’d just hear all about him all the time.”

Ron said he would see Madeline sit up all night studying and would think, “she’s nuts!”.

“One time I got the mumps after a teaching round so I stayed put and couldn’t go home. Ron came over to visit and said he was going over to the church at Ferntree Gully and would I like to come?” Madeline said.

Not wanting to sound too enthusiastic, Madeline pretended to think about it.

Ron didn’t ask again and left.

“I thought he would have asked again and I would have said yes I want to go with you,” Madeline said, laughing.

The two lovebirds found their way with a little help from a friend who had to point out the obvious to Ron- that Madeline liked him.

“He was really really slow,” Madeline said.

“I liked his personality and the fact that he loved God.”

Ron’s reasoning for falling in love with Madeline was the same.

“I found that Madeline was a spiritual person and I hadn’t grown up in the church and she had quite a good knowledge of scripture and I could talk to her about it. The more I had to do with her, the better it was,” Ron said.

Madeline eventually moved back home to Bunyip and undertook a teaching job at the primary school, where she herself once attended.

To ask permission to marry Madeline, Ron asked Madeline’s father as he was emerging from the bath.

“Pa was a lovely gentleman and said if that’s what Madeline wants, I will not stand in your way. And Nan said I don’t know, I’ll have to ask Lois (Madeline’s sister),” Ron said.

The question was asked at the botanical gardens, where Ron got down on one knee.

“He said it in German, don’t ask me why!” Madeline said.

“I didn’t understand German but I got the gist because he was on his knee in front of everybody.”

The pair married on 13 January 1962 at the Methodist Church in Bunyip and had the reception in what was then the new hall in Longwarry.

They went to Tasmania for their honeymoon.

Upon their return, they moved to Puckapunyal where Madeline got a job at the local kindergarten.

“I didn’t drive so we had to do this bit on conniving because I wasn’t supposed to be transported in an army vehicle,” Madeline said.

“I had to get a lift to work every day and had to put on an army hat until we got out of the camp!”

“Transgressor,” Ron said jokingly under his breath.

Five children later (Mark, Scott, Ross, Jane and Claire) and a stint in Western Australia, the family eventually settled back in Victoria in Mount Waverley where Ron pursued a new career as a teacher with the education department.

A challenge for the family was presented when Jane was born profoundly deaf.

But Ron and Madeline saw it as an opportunity to learn about the deaf community and to become advocates for better education for deaf children.

“There were no facilities at all for deaf girls to have a secondary education,” Ron said.

“We got ourselves involved and by the time Jane was 12, the education department set up units to take girls.

“To cut a long story short, she graduated from La Trobe University, she has a degree and she used to teach Auslan in schools.”

The pair moved home to Bunyip three and a half years ago after 47 years in Mount Waverley.

They have 15 grandchildren and their third great grandchild on the way.

Madeline and Ron believe their faith in God has been paramount to their successful marriage.

“We can see God leading us all the way through,” Madeline said.

“We have a faith in God so He’s at the top of everything we do.

“We’re not perfect and things go wrong and we’ve had our ups and downs but we have the Bible. Sometimes it means dying to your basic selfish self a lot of the time and putting the other one first and forgiving.”

Ron said what he has lived by is the thought that you move heaven and earth and make your marriage work.

As one of their grandchildren put it on their 60th wedding anniversary, Ron and Madeline provide an example of what marriage should look like.

“We’re so thankful the example your marriage is to us- Godly, fun, sacrificial, generous, tender, prayful with oodles of laughs that is firmly built on Christ and endures all seasons,” they said.