While today’s girls dream of falling in love with members of boy bands, Werribee’s Ann Beaumont won the heart of her own “band boy” many decades ago.
Ralph Beaumont was a British army musician, known as a band boy, when he wed Ann.
Ralph, 82, and Ann, 79, will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary on October 10.
Ralph was playing clarinet in the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry band when, as a 14-year-old, he was posted to Borneo in the late 1940s.
Homesick, he placed an advertisement in a London newspaper seeking a pen pal.
Ann responded, starting a romance that has seen the couple raise three daughters and travel the world.
They corresponded for two years before Ralph returned to London.
“He sent a telegram – I still have it – saying to meet him at Kings Cross station at 6pm,” Ann says. “It was already 5pm and I lived a long way from the station, but when I arrived at 7pm he was still waiting.”
The couple married and spent the next 30 years travelling the world with the army, including postings in Germany and Malaysia, where Ralph met a contingent of Australian troops with whom he kept in touch.
Daughter Jacki Tuffin said the Diggers told her father about Australia and it sparked his interest.
“The Aussies told him when there was a vacancy in the RAAF central band,” she says.
“He got it and moved the family to Werribee 40 years ago, to be near the Laverton RAAF base, and hasn’t moved since. “My parents raised three daughters, seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild, and they’ve loved Werribee.”
Ralph moved into Werribee Terrace Aged Care three months ago, but Ann visits him daily. Jacki and sisters Penny Lentini and Madeline Dunster, who still live in Werribee, will join the anniversary celebrations.
