Married 75 years and never had a row: Every day like Valentine’s for Hampstead haberdashery couple
Harold and Renee Gaze will celebrate 75 years of marriage next month - Credit: Archant
This loving couple say they’ve hardly had a cross word to say to each other in all their years together - which is remarkable when you consider they will mark 75 years of marriage next month.
Harold and Renée Gaze, who ran a shop in Hampstead for 30 years, have been inseparable since they met at a holiday camp. in 1938.
Their secret? “We try to make every day like Valentine’s Day,” said Harold, who ran G.H. Gaze and Co haberdashery shop in Hampstead High Street from 1950 until his retirement in 1980.
It was love at first sight when the couple met at a Methodist holiday camp in Sidestrand, near Cromer in Norfolk, and they married at Finchley Lane Baptist Church less than two years later.
Harold, who grew up in Golders Green, wasn’t called up for the forces during the war because of his job constructing airfields with building firm John Laing.
Afterwards he continued work in the construction industry until he took over his father’s haberdashery shop in Hampstead.
The couple now live in specially adapted rooms at Westerham Place care home in Kent, where they are regularly visited by their three grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
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They will celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary on March 23.
“We’ve had a wonderful, happy life together,” said Renée, who will be 100 in August.
“We just love each other really. Simple as that,” said Harold. “And we’ve never had an argument or a disagreement.”
“Well almost never,” agreed Renée with a laugh.