Blind date to Belgrave

By Russell Bennett
BELGRAVE couple James ‘Jim’ Miller and his wife Margaret have celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary with a ‘marvellous’ family holiday.
They met on a blind date in their home town of Dundee, Scotland.
“We were set up on the date by a mutual friend while I was on leave from the Royal Navy,” Mr Miller, 83, said.
The date was a success and the London-based Mr Miller began calling his sweetheart at 7pm every Friday without fail.
This continued for a year until he popped the big question.
“Neither of us can really remember it, though. It was something like ‘would you like to get married?’ and that was about it,” he said.
The Millers married on 29July 1950.
Last month they received letters from the Prime Minister and The Queen to mark their 60 year union.
“We never, ever thought we’d get a certificate from The Queen. That was quite something,” Mrs Miller, 82, said.
To celebrate their milestone the Millers’ children organised a family getaway to Tasmania.
“Our kids arranged for us to go to Tassie because we’d never been there,” Mr Miller said.
“The whole family went, including the grandchildren. We had a marvellous time.”
“We had three days there where I don’t think our feet touched the ground once.”
The Millers emigrated to Australia in 1958, leaving behind familiar surrounds in the UK in search of a better life for their young family.
“Where we were living our son David was the only child on the milkman’s round. There were no others,” Mr Miller said.
“The school that he had to go to had no playground, nothing. It was just a building. We knew that was no good and we just had to move.”
They opted for Australia because Mr Miller’s aunt, who’d made the move years before, spoke of its beauty.
“She kept writing to us, saying ‘come out here, it’s just so good’. So we did,” Mr Miller said.
The Millers, who settled in Williamstown upon their arrival, visited one of Jim’s cousins in Selby and instantly fell in love with the area.
They then moved to Rose Street, Belgrave, six months later and, said Mr Miller, have “been in this very house ever since”.
When asked if they had any highlights from their years together so far, the Millers said “the whole thing”.