General News
21 November, 2025
Pikes mark 60th anniversary
Alan and Betty Pike celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary this month marking another milestone in their shared love story.
Sixty years of marriage has been a quietly successful love for Betty and Alan Pike who celebrated the milestone earlier this month.
The small town of Bealiba heard church bells on November 6, 1965, when the local couple tied the knot all those decades ago.
It was Betty’s home town, while Alan came from Goldsborough, but together they put down roots in Maryborough.
“I always said I didn’t like Maryborough much ... but I love it. I always did like it,” Betty said.
Their lives for the next 58 years would be under the one roof, their family home, built by Alan on Gladstone Street.
“It just went on from there,” Betty said.
They now have two children, five grandchildren, and a great grandchild.
But if their family is after any relationship secrets, they’re not going to find many from Betty and Alan, who said their bond came easy.
Their one secret? Compromise.
“A bit of give and take I think on both sides,” Betty said.
“You can’t have it all your own way that’s for sure.”
That doesn’t mean they haven’t been without their challenges.
From Alan having a heart attack at 32, to Betty’s health struggles, the pair have made it through by supporting one another.
“We’re both in our 80s now and feel pretty blessed to have got this far,” Betty said.
While their lives may have slowed down, both happy to enjoy some lawn bowls and gardening, the memories of a young couple freshly in love are still there.
Betty said Alan seemed “too good to be true” because he was always kind and polite.
“We were friends and then one day it just clicked. I loved him and I thought well, this is it,” she said.
Alan would often drive between towns to see Betty leading to both getting home late at night.
On one occasion Alan said his uncle came outside to relieve himself just as he got home.
“I whipped around the corner … and he bent down and put his hand on the exhaust pipe of the car to see if it was still hot or cold,” he said.
The next morning, when asked how late he got home, he jokingly asked if his uncle had burned his hand.
Over in Bealiba, Betty would be trying to sneak back into her family’s home.
“I’d try and walk where I knew there wasn’t a squeaky [board],” she said.
“Dad would say ‘is that you Beth ... how’d you like making me a tomato and onion sandwich and a bottle of soft drink’.
She’d sarcastically reply, “at one or two o’clock in the morning I’d love to.”
After sixty years, an anniversary that “just sounds a long time” to Betty, they both hope the community know they’ve had a good happy marriage.
“We just hope we see a lot more of it. That’s all we can do,” Betty said.