The oldest living Australian rugby union player, Eric Tweedale, Wallaby #336, turns 101 on 5 May, and has told a beautiful story about how he found the woman he had been engaged to marry before World War II, 62 years later.
Eric, who lives at Peninsula Villages on the NSW Central Coast, made the revelation in an interview for The 100 Project.
While he has long been recognised as the oldest living Wallaby, his service to the country in the Second World War is less well-known – but possibly the most incredible story is that of his reunion with his late partner Enid, who also resided at Peninsula Villages.
“While sadly Enid passed last year, Eric and Enid’s remarkable tale is one that will live with us forever at the Village with two halves of a love story separated by more than 60 years,” said Peninsula Villages CEO Colin Osborne.
Eric and Enid were engaged to be married in 1942 before Eric joined the Royal Australian Navy and fought in World War II. During the three years he was serving, the pair drifted apart and didn’t see each other for many years, both going on to lead separate lives and marry other people. Then one fortuitous day in 2004, Eric was asked to do a favour for a friend: meet a widow at Sydney’s Central Station and look after her for the day ahead of a RSL reunion.
“I asked, what’s her name? They said, ‘Enid Wagner, do you know her?’ Know her? I almost married her!
“So we’ve met at the big clock at Central Station and took on from there. Two years later, I lost my second wife Phyllis, so we just ended up together 64 years after we last saw each other,” he said.
