A cycling love story
‘Our love has gone the distance!’
It was 1956 when a young Joy Dromgoole and Bruce Crabtree first caught one another’s eye as students at Auckland’s Takapuna Grammar School. “I was 13 and Bruce was 15,” recalls Joy. “The bus would drop us girls back to school from cooking class, and we’d quickly duck behind it where the boys were waiting and give our baking to whoever we liked. Bruce says he ‘got the baking and the girl.’”
They share a rare love that has seen them delight in their family, support one another through hard times and travel the world together by bike.
“Since the late 1980s, we’ve ridden over 45,000km, which is apparently the circumference of the globe,” says Joy.
According to NASA’s measurement of 40,075km, they’ve actually cycled around the Earth and then some, despite only taking up the sport in their 40s.
“We share so many special moments while we’re cycling, like Bruce giving me a flower he’s picked as a surprise every ride to put on the side of my handlebar bag,” tells Joy, who has always appreciated Bruce’s romantic gestures.
In their early courtship days, Bruce even joined a choir to spend more time with Joy.
“I had a chance to sing in the church choir,” explains
Joy. “Bruce, who was normally sailing at the weekends, decided to join too. He always walked me home after rehearsals.”
The pair also enjoyed their Saturday evenings at the EdenRoskill RSA.
“After the Harbour Bridge was built in 1959, we’d all meet at the church and car-pool using vehicles borrowed from fathers, and dance the night away. Boys would line one side of the hall and girls the other,” recalls Joy. “I knew if Bruce asked me for the last dance of the night, it meant he would drop me home last,” says Joy smiling. “He always got the last dance.”
Almost six decades of marriage have passed – Bruce proposed outside Joy’s parents’ house in his Morris Series E car in 1962 – but the memories remain razor-sharp.
“I’ll never forget when
I asked Joy’s father, ‘May I please marry your daughter?’ shares Bruce. “He looked at me and said, ‘No, you better ask her mother.’ Luckily, she said, ‘Yes, I’d be delighted.’”
But it was when their children Cheryl and Philip moved out of home that Bruce and Joy discovered their love of cycling.
“Our daughter was going on her OE and gave me her bike, so Joy bought a second-hand Raleigh 20 bike,” tells Bruce.
Joy continues, “Would you believe, it took me two weeks to relearn to ride, having not cycled since I left Takapuna Grammar. Bruce drove me down to the supermarket car park in the evening and while he read the newspaper, I practised. I could ride in a straight line,
but I couldn’t turn, so I’d hop off and manually turn the bike around.”
Fun rides were the start of their escapades, then the 120km Beachlands to Thames cycle. “We were slow, but we didn’t care,” recalls Joy, who instantly proposed another event – the 160km ride round Lake Taupo¯ . True to his easygoing nature, Bruce replied, “Yes dear.”
“When we finished last, the other cyclists had gone back to Auckland by bus, but the cleaners still had our certificates,” tells Joy, and they completed the ride three times, but never faster than 9.75 hours.
Joy and Bruce have now undertaken 24 long-distance cycle trips, ranging from 1000 to 1400km. In the early years, it was with a tent and a gas cooker on the back of the bike as they spent a month away. There have been 10 adventures in New Zealand, five in Australia and nine through Europe, riding alongside rivers like the Danube, the Rhine, across England and Wales, and circumnavigating Northern Ireland.
“Every day is an adventure, whether we’re cycling or at home,” enthuses Joy.
It’s Bruce’s willingness to try new things and his unwavering stability that has cemented her love for him time and time again. “He is very practical and attends to all the little things that make a difference,” says Joy.
Her loyal husband is quick to return the compliment. “Joy is very capable at just about everything. She’s very lovable.”
The devoted duo has always believed family comes first, a value handed down by their own parents.
They’ve relished every opportunity to look after and share in their grandkids’ lives. Annual camping trips at the beach, building toys and a surprise treehut, sewing dolls’ clothes and sitting sideline at sports games are all
treasured memories with their grandchildren, Amy, now 28, Josh, 26, and Adam, 23.
“One of Bruce’s greatest achievements was the threestorey treehouse the children found among the trees at our place one Christmas,” tells Joy.
For every occasion, they take photos and write stories to make albums of these precious times. “Even today, 21 years later, we love going to watch Josh play weekend cricket,” adds Bruce.
In a display of his dedication to family, even when he was coming out of a coma, Bruce’s first act was to reassure his grandchild.
Around 15 years ago, Bruce almost died when he developed a heart condition called apical ballooning syndrome as the result of a serious ear infection. Doctors put him into an induced coma and told the family his chance of survival wasn’t great. Bruce, however, miraculously recovered.
“He couldn’t talk, but the first sentence he wrote in wobbly letters was, ‘I love you, Amy’,” says Joy, explaining his granddaughter, then 13, had been upset about seeing Bruce so unwell. Joy says her faith helped see her through that difficult time.
“I woke up in the middle of the night, looked out the window and saw this bird sitting on a branch,” tells Joy. “I looked up and said, ‘Dear God, I can’t ask you to make Bruce better. If you need him more, then with your help,
I will learn to accept that.’
“A couple of hours later, Adam came rushing in to me. ‘Joy, Joy! I’ve just had a dream. I’m sure Bruce is going to be okay,’ and proceeded to tell me his dream.”
From that moment, Joy, who is a great believer in the power of dreams and also facilitates dream groups, felt certain he would survive.
While family has always been their top priority, both Joy and Bruce found personal success in their careers too.
Joy was a teacher and for 20 years, she was New Zealand soprano star Dame Malvina Major’s accompanist both in New Zealand and overseas, and répétiteur for more than 70 musicals and operas. Meanwhile, as the longest-serving skipper on the Auckland ferries, Bruce gained a reputation for being able to manoeuvre the Quickcat closest to the America’s Cup race start line.
With such active lives, it comes as no surprise they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary by doing the famous Camino de Santiago 900km pilgrimage, even walking from their Parkside Village home in Hillsborough to the airport.
After 10 weeks’ walking, they joined thousands of others and celebrated mass in the enormous Santiago cathedral on June 6, the day of their anniversary.
“Then, after walking to the coast, we burned our socks, watched the sun set and gave thanks to God for our 50-year journey together,” smiles Joy.
Now Bruce, 82, and Joy, almost 80, joke they have no plans to get old any time soon. In fact, they’re busy preparing for their first overseas cycle trip since the pandemic started.
“In May, we will ride from Geneva through France to the Mediterranean Sea, a total distance of close on
800 kilometres,” says Joy, seemingly unaware what an impressive feat this is. “Given this will be our first longdistance ride in four years and our first as 80-year-olds, we’re planning to ride only 40 kilometres a day.”
As the Weekly’s interview wraps up, Joy and Bruce tell us that every night before they go to sleep, they sing Cole Porter’s 1956 song True Love.
Looking at each other tenderly, they start to croon.
“For you and I have a guardian angel with nothing better to do, but to give to you and to give to me, love forever, true love.”
It’s a moving impromptu display of adoration, but after a lifetime of love, Bruce and Joy expect nothing less.
“We married ‘for better, for worse, in sickness and health…’ We have been truly blessed in our marriage,” admits Joy.
“We still do everything together. Being Catholics, we walk to mass each morning, play bowls, go dancing, do strength training with our fitness trainer daughter, enjoy the movies, love being with family and friends and, of course, ride, ride, ride!”
‘We burned our socks, watched the sun set and and gave thanks to God’