Elderly farmer David Morris finds love while volunteering to drive cancer patients to treatment in Victoria

David and Shirley say they’re looking forward to years of married bliss together. (ABC Wimmera: Daniel Miles)

David Morris had no intention of getting married again before he met Shirley Madden.

The 75-year-old farmer had resolved to live out his days as a bachelor in the remote town of Deep Lead, about three hours north-west of Melbourne, with a menagerie of animals, plants and antique tractors for company.

It’s not as if he didn’t believe in love — he’d been married three times previously and felt content with life.

“I told myself that’s it — never again,” David said.

“I’m not going to get attached to anybody, I’m just going to be me.

“She found a switch somewhere in me, though.”

Shirley wasn’t looking for love either. She had been on her own for many years, after raising her children as a sole parent following her husband’s death in a truck accident.

Sparks of romance

The couple first met when Shirley was camping at the Great Western racecourse, where David worked as a caretaker.

Almost immediately David was smitten, but their conversation was short and by the next morning she had packed up and left.

David managed to get her phone number from a camp manager who had seen the subtle sparks of romance between them.

“Shirley swears black and blue to this day that it was about 10 seconds after she sent the text message that I was on the phone to her,” David said with a laugh.

‘Ask me again when you’re serious’

At the same time as their relationship was growing, David was volunteering as a driver at Grampians Community Health, shuttling patients across Western Victoria to medical appointments.

He had lost his wife to breast cancer 14 years earlier and had battled prostate cancer himself, so he knew how hard it could be to reach help when it was needed most.

David said it felt like fate intervening when, out of the blue, he was asked to drive Shirley to and from her chemotherapy treatments.

Their friendship blossomed into a relationship on the four-hour round-trips from Shirley’s home in Marnoo to Ballarat Hospital.

When he proposed for the first time, she laughed.

“He was driving and then suddenly said, ‘Will you marry me?’, and I’m thinking, ‘He told me he wasn’t getting married again!’,” Shirley said.

“So I told him, ‘Ask me again when you’re serious’.”

Deflated but not defeated, David picked himself up and continued driving.

It was while driving another patient to hospital in Hamilton a few months later, with Shirley in tow, that he plucked up the courage to propose again.

“I turned around to her and said, ‘OK, will you marry me now?’

“This time she said yes straightaway,” David said with a laugh of relief.

Shirley also laughs at the memory.

“I knew he was serious then, and I said yes straightaway because our love was very good,” she said.

‘Should have happened 50 years ago’

The pair were married on David’s rural property on Valentine’s Day this year.

Bushfires raged in the nearby Grampians in the 24 hours before their celebration, but they were determined their wedding would go ahead.

“This should have happened 50 years ago, but we were all in different worlds then,” David said.

“You never know when love is there, it could be hiding around the corner any time.”

The pair won’t travel for a honeymoon, as they both still have health concerns.

But they’ve got each other.

“It’s a bit different, yeah, but it’s really wonderful having someone to spend time with and to be married again,” Shirley – now Mrs Morris – said.

David is still driving her to appointments, but this time as her husband rather than as a volunteer.

He said that the spirit of giving had changed his life and was something he would continue to embrace until he couldn’t.

“My mum volunteered for years,” David said.

“I thought I might need the service one day myself, so I should do something.

“I never thought I’d find a wife, but I’m so glad that I did — so very happy.”