- GOLDEN TIME: Porirua Fire Brigade Lfe Member Brian Fisher and wife Noeline have a celebration planned in the coming days to mark 50 years married. They say “give and take” and “plenty of tolerance” are the keys to making it work.
Noeline Fisher is testament to that saying about good things coming in threes.
It has been a big few weeks for the Ranui grandmother. It began with the Service to Sport trophy she received at the Porirua Sports Awards, which she says has “blown me out of this world”.
Those associated with netball in Porirua would say it is well- deserved, with Noeline dedicating more than 40 years to the Kapi Mana and Northern Utd clubs, from administration to announcing games on a Saturday, to everything in between.
“I look at the award and think of all the wonderful people who have come before me, the leadership it’s taken when netball was just beginning in Porirua. That walk up to the stage [at the sports awards] was just mind-boggling, I didn’t think I was going to get there.”
Number two on the list was the All Blacks winning the Rugby World Cup. She and her husband, Brian, like many other Kiwis, were on the edge of their seats for the epic final against France. They took their granddaughters Eva and Lily off to the big parade in Wellington on Wednesday.
The third event, this week, is the small matter of a 50th wedding anniversary. Noeline and Brian were married in a church in Tawa on November 4, 1961, both just 19 years old. They can not believe how time has flown.
“We’re busier now than we’ve ever been. I think sometimes we need to slow down a bit,” Noeline says. “We can’t do things as fast as we used to, but we look after each other.”
The couple are well-known in the Porirua community for their involvement in sport, Noeline’s work at Porirua Hospital and as a telephonist in Tawa, and Brian’s long service with Porirua Fire Brigade. They have seen Tawa and Porirua grow from “villages”, with a few shops and dirt tracks.
Brian recalls his paper route in Porirua was split up five times in four years, as the city was expanding so quickly. They have lived in the same house, which Brian built, for more than 47 years, and raised four children there.
“We had thought about moving into a retirement village, but we’ve done up the house instead,” he says. “I really enjoy Porirua, everything’s on your doorstep, it’s a great place to raise a family.”
Like every couple, they have had a few “blues” over the years, but nothing too serious. After one argument, Brian went to the fire station to spend the night but he came home hours later.
It was the fire service which gave them a fright on their wedding day too. Brian remembers, “We got married at 3pm and the fire siren went off. I thought ‘there goes my ride’ because they were due to pick us up [on one of the engines], but they let the siren off to let people know we’d got married, the cheeky buggers. You wouldn’t get away with that today, someone would get fired.”
FROM KAPI MANA NEWS BY KRIS DANDO
