Double portion of life and love

CELEBRATING love at all stages of life is something 80-year-old twins Pearl and Gift Kent do very well – one will be toasting more than half a century of marriage this year, while the other married for the second time at the age of 79 last year.

The identical twins celebrated their 80th birthday on January 9 at Oceana Beach and Wildlife Reserve – Pearl travelled up from her home in Port Elizabeth, while Gift lives in Port Alfred.

When at school the two sisters had to wear their initials on their uniforms so the teachers could tell them apart.

“Gift was older by 10 minutes – our mother didn’t even know she was having twins until the first was born and the doctor said there was another coming,” Pearl said.

Summerstrand couple Derek and Pearl Scotney – who played cricket and hockey respectively for Natal in their younger days – met at university and celebrate their 56th wedding anniversary next month.

Gift was happily married to Frank Gardner for 55 years. A few years after he passed away, she reconnected with an old childhood friend, Ian Wallace, and the couple married in March last year.

“We had known each other since early childhood, and Pearl and I would play ‘hide and seek’ together with Ian,” she said. Coincidentally, Ian was also happily married for 55 years before his wife died.

“It is incredible to have had such a rich and fulfilling life with Frank, and then to have found Ian,” Gift said.

Pearl remembers her journey with Derek: “I left school – Collegiate in PE and went up to the University of Natal and stayed in Natal for 50 years.

“My husband came from Zululand and we knew each other at university. Derek was more interested in sport and I thought him boring,” Pearl said.

Only when they left university and started working in Pietermaritzburg did they become close: “The more I got to know him, the more interesting he became.

“The first thing that probably attracted me to Derek is the fact that he’s tall – I don’t like ‘kortetjies’.”

The two courted and then were married at the Commemoration Methodist Church in Grahamstown on April 5 1958.

“Derek was a well-known sportsman in Natal, playing cricket in the late 1950s and early 1960s and so we hosted a lot of guests at the wedding.

“It was during the time that Jackie McGlew and Roy McLean played.

“Derek’s best man was Chris Burger,” Pearl said.

“I wore a lovely gown of snowy lace and a short veil, and I carried tulips. “On leaving the church, I was handed a horseshoe by my niece – it’s understood to be good luck,” Pearl said.

The Scotneys had three children; Clive, Duncan (deceased) and Jill, and five grandchildren.

Gift has three children; Lee, Steve and Russell, and seven grandchildren.