Dixie and Barbara from Shepparton celebrate 50 years of marriage

And after all that time they still keep life interesting for one another.

Matthew, 72, and Barbara 70, celebrated their milestone on Monday, having been married on Easter Monday in 1970, back when Year 12 was still called ‘matriculation’ in Shepparton.

And that’s where the magic happened — at Shepparton High School in 1966.

Like a scene out of Grease, Matthew, as he described it, was “going with a girl” who was friends with Barbara at the time.

Barbara recalled Matthew driving past the school every lunchtime in his ute, as Barbara and her school friends hung over the fences.

“It was love at first sight,” she said.

“After school finished, I went to Melbourne to work at the Bank of New South Wales for two years, but as the romance developed, I got a transfer to Tatura — it was probably the sole reason I came back.”

Four years later, the couple were joined in holy matrimony at St Brendan’s Church in Shepparton.

Both born in Shepparton, Matthew and Barbara have been part of the social fabric here for generations, deeply embedded in many aspects of community life.

‘Dixie’, as he is known, earnt his unusual moniker when a kid on the school bus asked a six-year-old Matthew how old he was.

“I replied that I was Dix,” Matthew said.

“Most people here now don’t even know my real name.

“They only know me as Dixie.”

Their two sons and three grandsons have also ended up with the nickname.

Over the years, Matthew has held several jobs in Shepparton, including 25 years at the Butter Factory, a stint at the Ducat’s milk factory and as a truck driver delivering milk.

Barbara has worked in the finance side of things at various supermarkets across Shepparton, where she still works as a credit analyst with Rural Finance, lending money to farmers.

Both are life members of the Shepparton East Football Club. Matthew played for the club in his younger years, later coaching the under-14s side, where he served as a junior football club president.

Matthew has been a member of the CFA for 45 years and has captained the Shepparton East Brigade for 16 years.

He is also on the Central Park Recreation Reserve committee and has been involved in helping the youth of Shepparton for decades.

However, Matthew said the highlight of his time in Shepparton was when he got to carry the Olympic torch through Shepparton to Mooroopna before the 2000 Olympic Games.

“That was an honour, when I look back at it,” he said.

Despite Matthew’s high standing in the community, Barbara said she still had to keep him in check from time to time.

“He takes some minding; he’s done some pretty stupid things over the years,” she said.

Barbara said if there had been one constant throughout their marriage, it was their love for travel.

“Russia, Italy, Romania, Serbia, essentially every country in Europe. You name it — we’ve been there,” she said.

“We were supposed to be celebrating our 50th in Hawaii, but luckily, we didn’t go.

“We were going to leave on a cruise ship, so it would have been the double whammy.”

With four kids, nine grandchildren and one-and-a-half great grandchildren, the Dwyers said they simply loved family life.

Barbara has tracked their family lineage back to Europe in the 1500s, her ancestors arriving in Australia on the First Fleet, making their great grandchildren the ninth Australian-born generation.

As with most marriages, the couple said it had not always been smooth sailing.

“There’s been ups and downs, we go through the lows and the highs together and come out the other side,” Barbara said.

“It’s definitely not all good sailing, you have to take the good with the bad.”

Barbara is getting cancer removed from her head today in a one-hour day surgery.

In the future, the couple said they were looking forward to more travel and family time.

“We want to travel as much as we can while we can, and we’ll still be chasing grandkids and great grandkids as the time goes by,” Matthew said.

He said despite their age, they were still learning new things every day, even using “Mr Google”, as Matthew called it, from time to time.

“We try and do as much together as possible,” he said.

“The years just turn into each other.”