IS THIS AUSTRALIA'S longest love STORY?

DELMA AND FRANK SAID 'I DO' 80 YEARS AGO

- Emma Levett

It definitely wasn't love at first sight when Delma Earsman met Francis 'Frank' Murray 86 years ago.

“His best mate lived next door and he was having a birthday party,” Delma, now 100, recalls. “I didn’t like him. He was too forward. My mum asked if I met anyone at the party and I said one boy but that I wasn’t keen on him.”

But Frank freely admits he liked Delma as soon as he saw her. Despite breaking his leg not long after their first meeting in 1939, Frank kept hobbling along to dances and events on his crutches, hoping to catch Delma’s eye.

“One time he offered to walk me home, which must have been a big effort on his part on crutches,” Delma tells New Idea.

“He grew on me and then he declared I was his girlfriend to the other boys. I denied it but he kept coming to the dances.”