Robert and Margaret Whyte have spent more than 60 years together at their home in the north east of Scotland
The retired Fraserburgh couple, who built a home together and raised two children, have doted on grandchildren and even relished the arrival of great-grandchildren, but still find time to take in the occasional dance on the town.
Last week, they celebrated their diamond anniversary and it was a time to reflect on the myriad happy memories they had shared throughout their lives.
But, as Mrs Whyte explained, their first year together was not easy.
Despite that, the pair have come through all their varied experiences stronger and have weathered any storms with the dogged determination you might expect from a Broch couple.
They first met more than 60 years ago at a dance in neighbouring Lonmay and were married two years later with little more than the change in their pocket.
Mrs Whyte said: “We just clicked. And we had the same interests.”
Yet, at the time, Mr Whyte – or Bob as his wife calls him – was preparing to head off to India to serve his country, leaving his bride behind him.
The Inverallochy-born 81-year-old recalled: “I was doing my national service in the army when we got married.
“I had been doing my training up in Inverness at the time – with 1st Battalion Cameron Highlanders – but then I was posted to Aden for 18 months after we got married.
“We were all just a bunch of young boys, about 20 or 21 at the time. They [the regiment] had just come back from Korea.”
Returning home, and as a joiner by trade, he built a home and started a family with his wife.
And even today, he takes his wife out to dances to relive the very first time they met.
Mrs Whyte joked: “It’s kept us in good shape.
“We still dance, but we’re not drinkers. We don’t like to sit about.
“It was difficult at the start, though. We were just newly married and he was away for a year and a half in Aden. I got a job at Woolworths in Fraserburgh and I stayed with my mum.”
She added that the secret to the couple’s success was a “give and take” dynamic.
“He gives,” Mrs Whyte said, “and I take.”
“But we’ve been really lucky. We’ve always liked the same things, and we were never away carrying on. It has been a happy 60 years and passed like a flash.
“I would say the secret is realising that you start with nothing. So you have got to build it up from there. I only had £50 when I got married, and Bob had £60.
“That’s all that we started off with. We had to work at it.”
Six decades on, it’s clear their attitude has paid a healthy dividend.
