General News
17 April, 2026
Harts dance their way to love
Years of ballroom dancing, interstate travel and “hard work” together have led to a platinum anniversary for Bill and Irene Hart, who are marking 70 years married together this week.
The pair met early on in Mr Hart’s career as a builder.
In the 1950s, he went to work with his cousin’s father nearly two hours away, cleaning out dams in the middle of summer.
“I was in a little place called Kotta, about 17 miles from Echuca. One night up there we went to a dance, I got up the next morning and I packed my bag,” he said.
Mr Hart came to a realisation that he didn’t want to spend the rest of the summer working, and returned to the dances he remembered going to in Maryborough.
“He said ‘you’re supposed to be here to help me, you were only here three days’. I had no reason to leave ... I keep telling her, she was sending vibes from all that distance.
“I was a bit of a dude back in those days. Blond, wavy hair and a sports car in pink. It was my expression, I painted it myself. Anyway, I drove it down to Maryborough.
“I later went to the swimming pool because it was New Years Day by then, and saw this lady [Irene] and her mate. I had the top of my car down.”
Mrs Hart recalls pointing out the ‘dude’.
“I said to my friend, ‘have a look at that dude in the car’ because he had a pink car but a red shirt on,” she said.
In that moment, Mr Hart realised he had seen the same woman at a dance in Avoca the year before.
Two years later, the pair married in Avoca, and embarked on their honeymoon in Adelaide.
“We hired a caravan and we had it for a fortnight. We drove to a caravan park in Adelaide ... we went back four years later, and it expanded about five times, didn’t even look the same. Nothing remains the same,” Mr Hart said.
Despite this, at age 23, Mr Hart built a caravan himself for the pair to continue travelling in.
“That lasted until our family grew ... but we caravaned for 61 years. We went away every winter, we loved going up to Queensland. But we just toured all around Australia,” he said.
“We once had four months in there and did near 20,000km. We liked all the trees in Western Australia, especially the coastal Banksia, and that only grows from eight to 12 feet high. So we planted it here, and it’s bigger.”
Together, they have five children, 12 grand children and 26 great grandchild.
“They are wonderful little kids,” Mr Hart said.
Throughout that time, the couple spent decades ballroom dancing together.
“We paused when our kids were growing up ... once the eldest was a teenager, we started going to the local dances. Then we found out during that time, they were doing a lot of dances that we had never seen before,” Mrs Hart said.
“So, we were dancing three times a week, going to Ballarat for lessons, learning all of this new stuff.”
But that didn’t stop the pair from winning across the state, so many times Mr Hart had to build a place to hang all of their sashes.
“After you win a sash, you have to do a lap of the ballroom with the fancy steps, that gave us a real buzz,” he said.
Mrs Hart credits their ‘hard work’ as the secret to how they’ve enjoyed being together so long.
“It takes lots of hard work. He had me up on the verandah at five in the morning once. They had just brought in a new law that meant only plumbers could fix the issue we had ... so, at five, we were up there with him and he fixed it before anyone was out of their beds,” Mrs Hart said.
“Every day is a funny story.”
Since then, their home has had a sun room added, decorated with statues and images of birds, including one of Mrs Hart’s favourites, blue wrens.
Mr Hart continued being an avid builder, constructing much of the furniture the couple still has today.
When he demolished a building in Bealiba, he kept a large set of double doors with large glass panes.
This set became the family’s front doors, with Mr Hart transfering blue wren designs onto the panes for her.
Even when he built their bed frame, he ensured a blue wren was included in that design too.
However, Mr Hart’s secret to 70 years together is a lot simpler than his wife’s.
“No drinking, no smoking and lots of love,” he said.
“Everywhere we go, people say we are their favourite customers. And that’s at the places we go to together.”
The pair celebrated the milestone with a dinner joined by family.