A life of work, family and travelling the world will be celebrated when Ken and Gloria Whittingham of Oatley mark their 60th wedding anniversary on May 4.
Ken grew in Bexley and Gloria (nee Murray) in Redfern.
They both left school at 14 and while Gloria joined the public service, Ken became a French polisher like his father, Reginald, and grandfather, William.
They met at a dance in Pitt Street where Ken worked as a dancing instructor in the evenings.
They married at St Vincent’s Redfern in 1957 and settled at first in Panania before moving to Caringbah three years later.
Ken worked at the family French polishing business, KJ Whittingham Pty Ltd, at Rocky Point Road, Sans Souci.
The family business was known for the highest quality of workmanship. Over the years, Ken has worked for Royalty, the Pope and Frank Sinatra.
One of his most important was repolishing the master suite at Government in Sydney for use by the Queen when she came to stay.
Another highlight was making a wooden cross for for the visit of John Paul II in the 1990s.
“There was a push on at the time to canonise Mary MacKillop and the Pope was presented with a cross made from the floorboards of the school where she worked in Penola, South Australia.
“My job was to polish the cross before it was presented to the Pope,” Ken said.
“She is now known as St Mary of the Cross and I’m sure that cross had something to do with it,” Ken said.
“We worked for thousands of people in St George and Sutherland Shire and at one stage had 15 polishers working for us,” Ken said.
Ken and Gloria have four children - Judy, Ken, Tony and Angela, and 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
“We are both interested in the same things,” Ken said. “Gloria loves watching all the sports on TV, even the Basketball in the United States.
“We have done a lot of travelling including 67 cruises and 34 coach tours.”
“We’ve been to Bali 38 times and around the world many times. We’ve been pretty much everywhere.”
They celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary with another ocean cruise.
“But family is the main interest,” Ken said.
“Work and family have been our lives.”
