You don’t have to hear Rex and Dianne Matthews speak to understand their 60-year marriage; you only need to look at their walls, where decades of knick-knacks and photographs map out a life lived well.

But more than 60 years ago, before they were married, they were just two teenagers working at an insurance firm in Melbourne.

Their romantic beginning reads like any classic rom-com book: co-workers arranged on a double date, and the other couple mysteriously fails to show up.

“We were a third of the way to Bendigo (for the date) where we were meant to meet … neither of us knew what to do,” Dianne said.

“It was a bit awkward.

“Then Rex said, ‘We’ll go visit my grandmother’.”

So, on the very first date, Dianne got the tick of approval from Rex’s family, and they started dating almost immediately.

They embraced the classic courtship of the 1960s — attending the pictures together or dancing the night away at social evenings across Melbourne.

“Heidelberg, Williamstown, Hawthorn — oh Hawthorn Town Hall, very upmarket, dear,” Dianne said.

“They had different bands in different rooms, so you could choose which type of music you wanted to dance to.”

Then one night, after they had gone ice skating, they got into the car and Rex popped the question.

“It felt sort of like a mutual agreement,” Rex said.

“But it was definitely a proposal,” Dianne said.

They were engaged for about 18 months before marrying on April 9, 1966, at Spotswood Church of England — right around the corner from Dianne’s family home.

There wasn’t anything storybook, fairytale about their wedding — in front of a modest audience filled with their closest friends and family, simplicity was all they needed.

They settled in Williamstown to raise their family, welcoming Vicki in 1967 and Tracey in 1969, who although born years apart, were like twins according to Rex and Dianne.

Life was a blur of running a milk bar, Rex’s work at the local paper, and the girls’ callisthenics schedules.

But soon a deep yearning for adventure would transform their lives completely.

When Vicki and Tracey were ages nine and seven, the family packed their life into a caravan, headed off up the highway and didn’t return to Melbourne for 13 months.

“We went right around and through Australia,” Rex said.

Every metropolitan, regional and rural city, the family stopped and spent some time in, exploring the culture and meeting the people at every stop.

The kids were homeschooled by the pair: Rex taught maths, Dianne taught English.

The pair said the trip was life changing.

“You look at everything differently,” Dianne said.

“It makes you realise how life changes too quickly. It was an experience I will never forget.”

Their passion for exploration continued to flourish, as they would go on to travel to countless countries across most continents.

They recalled visiting Russia just three weeks before the end of the USSR.

Dianne said the experience was “shocking.”

“It was very interesting — but so backward,” she said.

“Luckily, we could go to the supermarket because the food was so bland.”

They also welcomed exchange students and teachers from across the world into their home, embracing the cultures each brought with them.

And in 2002, after years of travelling around the world, they found comfort and peace in a quiet regional tourist town called Echuca.

They bought the Settlement Motor Inn, a house for Vicki, and a house for themselves.

Though Rex claims he wanted to keep travelling — he too found solace in the slow-paced lifestyle of riverboats and walks down by the waterfront.

Behind the harmony, however, laid significant challenges.

Both went through their own health battles, Dianne with her heart and Rex overcoming cancer twice.

However, staying together and having a mutual understanding, even in the darkest of days, was the true secret to their marriage.

“We don’t really argue at all,” Dianne said.

Rex said the pair had essentially worked together since they met each other, both in careers and in their relationship.

“We’ve been all over the place together, we had a jewellery shop together (in Echuca),” he said.

“We understand each other.

“We’re not on this earth forever, so it’s more important to just help each other.”

On Thursday, April 9, 2026, the pair celebrated their diamond anniversary surrounded by friends and family at a dinner party, likely sharing stories of their romantic first date and anecdotes of their year-long travels.

Sixty years on, the “mutual agreement” they made in a car after ice skating remains the bedrock of their lives.

And while the days of home-schooling in a caravan and travelling the world may be behind them, the adventure hasn't stopped.

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Tuesday, 30th November 2027

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