And when their daughter Jo Bone visited them for their 60th wedding anniversary this week, that's exactly what they were doing.

"There's not a time I don't see them holding hands," she said. "I'm here three or four times a week and they are always holding hands."

Romance blossomed between the pair in the 1960s when Geraldine used to visit the Collingwood post office to deliver the mail when she worked at box-making company Morris Walker.

Keith said he remembered Geraldine would stand back in line and wait until he was free to serve her.

Together they used to love dancing the Fox Trot or Pride of Erin at the packed church hall.

Geraldine was 19 when they tied the knot on June 1, 1963 - the day before Keith's 22nd birthday. And the secret to their long marriage, they both said, was "love".

Geraldine was the oldest of 11 children, and after they were first married there were times the couple took in all her siblings.

"They were renting this tiny two or three-bedroom house, and they weren't allowed to have kids. Well they had nine," Geraldine's sister Deb Dalton said.

The couple moved to Simpson for a tree change and to raise their own family of three girls.

Mrs Dalton recalls the days when all her siblings would converge on the couple's Simpson home for the car club cabaret where there would be lots of food and dancing.

Keith worked in rural finance for Kraft Foods in Simpson, and Geraldine later went to work at the high school in Camperdown where they later moved to when their daughters were teenagers in the 1980s.

The couple moved back to Simpson until they retired and then, as empty nesters, to Yarrawonga to be closer to family.

"They were really social. They were golfers, they were in clubs, involved in the church and bowls. Dad volunteered at the nursing home up there," Mrs Bone said.

But after Keith underwent four heart surgeries, and Geraldine was diagnosed with dementia, they moved to Warrnambool in 2018 to be near their girls.

Mrs Bone said she was so thankful Mercy Place had embraced the couple and allowed them to be together.

"They've got their own dining table where they sit and have their meals three times a day and they just go back to Dad's room and hold hands and watch telly together. Or they'll sit and watch all the activities together and hold hands," she said.

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