It’s been a very happy road for Kenny and Peggy
ROMANTIC films are at the heart of a Highland couple’s 68-year marriage.
As a teenager in Dingwall in the 1940s, Kenny Mackenzie asked a pretty girl out on a date as she waited outside the town’s Picture House.
And where better to take her than to the cinema itself?
Fortunately for Kenny, the young girl agreed and a year – and 100 films – later in 1948, Peggy became his wife.
What they didn’t know at the time was that the first film they saw together – The Road To Happiness – would be quite so apt for how their lives would turn out.
“We used to go to the pictures three times a week in those days – we loved it,” said 88-year-old Peggy.
“I remember we had to stand in a queue for ages to see the film on our first date and couldn’t get a seat – but it was worth it.”
The romantic hit, starring John Boles and Mona Barrie, tells the story of singer Jeff Carter who has just returned from Europe, eager to see his family but instead finds out his wife has divorced him.
He is reunited with his young son Danny and takes on an acting job to support them both.
Danny tries to push his father away but Jeff decides to keep the job so he can spend more time with his son before he ultimately gets his big break.
Kenny and Peggy were young when they got married, at 18 and 20 respectively, and had to put up with several sceptical voices when they decided to tie the knot.
Despite that, they were always convinced it would work and after four children, 12 grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and nearly seven decades of marriage, they certainly proved the doubters wrong.
“A lot of Peggy’s friends said it wouldn’t last, due to our ages,” said Kenny, 86. “But we had other ideas. I walked Peggy home after the film and knew right away I
wanted to see her again. We made our own happiness.”
Kenny and Peggy.