Local doctors Bill and Pat Ryan will celebrate 60 years marriage on Thursday (March 2).
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But the medicos’ love affair goes back further than that - seven years in fact - they met the first week of their first year studying medicine at the University of Sydney.
Bill was aged 19 and Pat 18.
But they could have actually met 12 months earlier if Bill, then holidaying with his best mate from school Michael Best, at Brunswick Heads hadn’t missed a party being held at Casino by one Pat Standish.
“That didn’t eventuate,” Dr Pat said “but when I met Bill in Sydney when we started studying, it was all over.
“And as they say the rest is history.”
Dr Bill’s first reaction was a bit more direct - “Wow”.
“Who is that,” Dr Bill inquired of Michael “that’s the girl whose party we missed,” was the reply.
Despite the distances between Nowra and Casino, especially back in the 1940s, the couple were more interwoven than they realised.
Dr Frank Ryan (Bill’s father), who practiced in Nowra, had a brother Redmond practicing in Lismore and was a colleague with Pat’s father who was a GP in Casino.
In fact Dr Redmond had delivered Pat.
After finishing university, they both undertook their residency for 12 months, Pat in Balmain and later Casino, while Bill studied obstetrics at St Margaret’s at Lewisham before joining the family practice in Nowra.
“We waited until we finished our residencies to get married,” Dr Bill said.
The happy event was at St John’s College chapel on March 2, 1957.
Pat had lived at Sancta Sophia College, an enclosed order of nuns adjacent to the university for seven years and Bill at St John’s, and after taking their vows the couple visited the nuns on the way to their reception.
The couple honeymooned for a month visiting Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide.
They made their home in Nowra on April 1, with Dr Pat becoming the first permanent female doctor in the area.
“When I first got here I wondered what I had done,” Dr Pat said.
“Casino was such a beautiful country town. Everything was so well presented.
“Nowra didn’t even have a sealed street at that stage. But I liked the area from the start. I loved it and still do.
“The people were very accepting of the new doctor, especially as I was a woman.”
It was around this time the pair got their widely referred to tags, as simply Dr Pat and Dr Bill.
“It was decided Bill’s father Frank would be Dr Ryan, Bill would be Dr Bill and myself Dr Pat - and it stuck,” she said.
They had four children - Denise (1958), Frank (1959), Marianne (1961) and Mark (1962).
“We had four children under five,” Dr Pat said.
“It was a busy time. I think I had four lots of two weeks maternity leave,” Dr Pat said.
“People just worked on in those days.”
They have 18 grandchildren and one great granddaughter.
The couple proudly show off a photograph of their first date in March 1949, a college ball at White City, and say the secret to being together for so long was simple.
“We like being with each other,” Dr Pat said.
“And we still like being together,” Dr Bill said.
“We saw a lot of each other throughout university. When we got married and worked together it was easy.”
The couple will celebrate their 60th anniversary with a gathering of family and friends, including some of the guests from their wedding, in Sydney.