Two ‘best friends’ happily married for 50 years
IN 1966, when 22-year-old Sebastian Gopaul met his would-be wife, Veronica, he did not let her stubbornness get the better of him.
He instead used her silence as a challenge and slowly charmed the 17-year-old.
When he approached Veronica at a bus stop, his advances, he said, were met with a stone cold reception.
“I spoke to her and she snubbed me. But I stood there and talked and talked until she gave in,” recalled Gopaul.
“From the moment I saw her, I knew I had to get this pretty girl and I think after a while even she realised I was not one of those men who just wanted to use a person.”
At this stage, Veronica blushed as she too recalled their encounter.
“I went to Durban Indian Girls’ High School and for someone to attend a school like that during apartheid was an achievement, so a lot of us had our noses in the air. When he approached, I didn’t want to react,” she said.
But her stubbornness, she added, melted and she often waited to see him at the bus stop.
The couple recently celebrated their 50th anniversary.
Veronica, who lived in Chatsworth, used to visit her great grandmother after school in Mayville and thereafter waited at the bus stop to return home.
Gopaul, who was also from Chatsworth, used to visit friends in the area after work.
“I lived on the border of Unit 1 and 2 and he was in Unit 2, so we talked in the bus and he would walk me home,” Veronica recalled.
Gopaul, who worked at Earl Factory as a dispatch clerk, said he used to rush to the bus stop after work and later, as the months progressed, they began to court.
Said Veronica: “We used to go to the movies or I would spend time with his family until my father told me he wanted to meet him, so they met.”
In 1967, Gopaul approached Veronica’s dad, who lived in the Durban CBD, for her hand in marriage.
“He accepted but I also had to ask her granny for permission. She said it was fine but cautioned us against rushing into marriage, so we said okay. But about three months later, we decided we had enough of waiting and needed to marry.”
They tied the knot on August 23 in a Christian ceremony.
Veronica wore a white wedding dress and Gopaul, a powder blue suit.
The newly-weds moved in with Gopaul’s family.
Gopaul had left his job at Earl Factory and then began working in the data computer division at OK Bazaars.
The couple had three daughters – Michele, Tracey and Nicole – and relocated to Pietermaritzburg after he was promoted to branch manager.
While their children went to school, Veronica began working as a receptionist at Goodhope, a concrete pipe manufacturing company.
In 1998, they both retired and relocated to Montclair in Durban.
Gopaul, never one to sit idle, opened a take-away, Uncle Govender’s, in Clairwood. They now live in a flat at the retirement block at Tafta.
Veronica referred to her husband as her best friend.
“I got married straight out of school and grew up with him, and we are still the best of friends.”
Gopaul said they stood by each other through everything.
“There was nothing we couldn’t resolve without honesty, trust and communication.”