REMARRIED 51 YEARS LATER!
EDWARD AND HEATHER’S LOVE FOR EACH OTHER NEVER FADED – EVEN AFTER HALF A CENTURY
When 22-yearold Edward Garrett married his sweetheart Heather back in 1969, they had no idea they’d soon be cruelly torn apart for decades – only to reunite and remarry more than half a century later!
“I never stopped loving Heather – and this time it really is till death do us part!” sighs Edward, 73, from Carnarvon, Western Australia. Heather nods: “Being back with him after all these lonely years is a miracle. I still can’t believe it!”
Their extraordinary love story, rekindled during the anniversary of the moon landing last year, began when the couple were both 17 years old.
Edward, born in the UK and raised in South Australia, had moved to Sydney to join the navy when he turned 16.
“Then I met Heather at a friend’s pool party. The moment I laid eyes on her, I thought, ‘Wow!’” he recalls with a twinkle in his eye. “But I was way too shy to ask Heather out.” Thankfully Heather, equally attracted to Edward, took the lead, phoning him a few days later to suggest he take her to a dance. The relationship blossomed, and three years later the young lovers were engaged. But to their disappointment, their families didn’t approve. Edward’s parents didn’t want him marrying Heather. “I think my mother didn’t like losing her son to someone else,” Edward reflects. Heather’s parents weren’t keen on Edward, either. “We went ahead and married anyway, but our parents did everything to keep us apart,” says Heather. At first the smitten newlyweds were able to ignore family pressures, and they moved to the other side of the country. Edward landed a job at Carnarvon’s NASA tracking station, helping to coordinate the footage of the first moon landing relayed back to earth.
“It was an exciting job, and with Heather at my side, life was wonderful,” says Ed.
But a surprise pregnancy and their families’ animosity sparked the end of their time together. It would be half a century before they’d see each other again.
“The doctor said there were complications with the unborn baby so I had to go to Sydney,” Heather says. Edward stayed on in WA, planning to join her a few weeks later, stopping to visit his family in South Australia along the way.
“But whenever I phoned her parents’ home in Sydney, where she was staying, they said she wasn’t around,” he says sadly. “They didn’t even tell me our son was born.”
Unbeknown to Edward, Heather
was also regularly trying to phone him.
“Whenever I phoned his parents’ home, they would say he wasn’t around and not give him the message.”
Each was led to believe by their families that their spouse was no longer interested.
“It was a terrible time for me. I gave birth to Matthew, who had spina bifida, and Edward wasn’t around,” she says.
“In the ’70s I posted Edward the divorce papers on the grounds of desertion,” she says.
She remarried, having two more sons, but the relationship ended in 1990. Edward also married, becoming a stepfather to three boys.
“My wife, Jean, was 16 years older than me, and I bonded really well with her sons,” he says. “Thanks to them, I’m now a great-grandfather.” Sadly, Jean died in 2012. “I felt incredibly lonely,” Edward reflects. “I often thought about Heather, but
“BEING MARRIED TO EDWARD IS EVEN BETTER THAN IT WAS THE FIRST TIME AROUND!”
I wanted to honour what I thought was her wish to have nothing to do with me.”
Then last year, it was the moon landing anniversary.
“Every time I saw something on TV about this, I thought about Edward,” she says. “Eventually I said to myself, ‘You have to make contact with him.’”
Finding his number, she texted: “Congratulations on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Lots of memories. Love to talk, but I will understand if you don’t want to.”
“I simply couldn’t believe that the love of my life was contacting me,” Edward said. “I called her right away, my heart thumping so loudly I feared she could hear it in her home in Grafton. I felt like we were teenagers again.”
When Edward arrived at her home, Heather says: “We fell into each other’s arms. We never wanted to be apart again.”
As for getting to know his son, Edward admits, “It’s taking a bit of time … Of course it would have been much different if he’d grown up in the same house as me.”
Heather flew to WA to live with Edward. They remarried on January 18 this year, exactly 51 years since they first tied the knot.
“Being married to Ed now is even better than it was the first time round!” says Heather.
Though both regret ever allowing their families to keep them apart, she adds, “We now look to the future together and cherish every single moment.”