Surrey couple, married at 12, celebrate their 80th anniversary
It was Feb. 18, 1937, in a village in British Punjab, and Darshan Singh Khun Khun was going to get a look at his bride-to-be for the first time. Or so he thought. “I remember they wrapped the woman in a cloth, a really nice cloth, and she came in,” he recalled, with his grandson Jaskarn (Jas) Singh Khun Khun translating in their Surrey home. “I didn’t even get to see the face of the one I was marrying.”
Darshan was 12 years old at the time, as was his bride Amar Kaur.
“It was an arranged wedding,” Jas said. “They had never even seen each other and they were put into this wedding setting and they got married.”
Last Saturday, they celebrated their 80th wedding anniversary.
Think about the world back in 1937. King George VI, Queen Elizabeth’s father, became the last Emperor of India, after Edward VIII abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson.
The Spanish Civil War was raging, as were Josef Stalin’s purges. Pope Pius XI published anti-Communist and anti-Nazi encyclicals.
Meanwhile, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs became the first full-length animated feature film. Pan American Airways flew the first commercial flight across the Pacific that year, Amelia Earhart disappeared and the Hindenburg met its horrendous fate at a naval air station in New Jersey.
And back in their village of Shabaz Pur, Darshan and Amar lived in a united Punjab. There was no country called Pakistan until in 1947, when Punjab was arbitrarily cut in two, with about 80 per cent of the area falling within the new borders of the Muslim state.
“On the day we got married, I remember a man from our village was running for election in Lahore to the assembly,” Darshan said, referencing the city that today is the second-biggest in Pakistan.
His father died when he was just three months old, and his mother died just a couple of years after his childhood marriage.
“He never experienced an easy life,” Jas said. “He built a lot on his own. They both worked so hard for everything. If they hadn’t done what they’d done, none of us would be sitting here.”
The couple moved to Williams Lake, where Darshan had a sister, in 1981. It’s easy to imagine the culture shock.
“It was a complete flip from what we were used to,” Darshan said. “From hot climate to cold, being way up north with its huge snowfalls — we brought the completely wrong kind of clothes.”
It took two years for the couple to adjust, while Darshan worked in the lumber mill in winter and in the fields in Abbotsford during springs and summers. They moved to Surrey in 1989. Amar was in a serious car crash a few years ago and has some trouble getting around. Her daughter-inlaw Surjit — Jas’ mother — helps her throughout the day.
“They crack jokes back and forth,” Jas said. “They watch a live feed from the Golden Temple of the prayers and hymns.” Darshan is still active. “He gets up at 4 a.m. He rides his bike. He walks to the temple every day,” Jas said.
The secrets to the couple’s long marriage, their son Kuljit Singh said, are hard work, mutual respect and honesty.
“They never ever hid anything from each other,” he said. “They had secrets they kept to themselves and never told anyone else, but no secrets from each other.”
He never experienced an easy life. … He built a lot on his own. They both worked so hard for everything.